


The Nixie's Song

by thespicyricey



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fluff, M/M, Nymphs & Dryads, Romance, Sirens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-22 01:22:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14297682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespicyricey/pseuds/thespicyricey
Summary: Yifan's never been one to believe in mythology, nor things that he himself cannot prove by seeing - but when he finds himself entranced by something singing down by the rocks on the beach, he's a little more inclined to believe in the unexpected.





	The Nixie's Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Malingshu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malingshu/gifts).



 

 

Yifan really hates final-exam projects.

More specifically, final-exam projects as requisites to pass the classes that bore the ever-living shit out of him - often classes that he has absolutely no interest in but are usually necessary to fill credits toward his degree, and which class could he possibly have more disinterest in than marine biology?

Final-exam projects as a whole usually eat ass, in his opinion - like that time he took general psychology one, and his final project was an extensive scrapbook of his entire life up until the previous point with details about his growth and his puberty and considering it had been both very boring and uncomfortably invasive, Yifan has ever since safely made it a point that he _really_ hates final-exam projects.

His marine biology project, however, hadn’t sounded too terrible - merely an excavation experience to leave campus and find something having to do with either marine life or the eclectic cycles of the tides, and present a well-documented report on what he’s found. Having been given such a broad topic as _anything having to do with marine life or the tides_ , Yifan has only a smidgen of belief in himself and his own capabilities that he will be able to somehow come up with a topic unique enough to snag himself a satisfactory grade to help raise his average.

Already just about ready to give up, Yifan sighs as he trails his eyes along the vast bookshelf, staring blankly and fruitlessly for something interesting to materialize out of thin air and catch his attention. Surely there has to be something more interesting than the cycles of the tides and the different species of squid which live in the deeper crevices of the oceans. He supposes he could, very well, make a tasteful paper about the amount of the planet’s ocean which remains undiscovered and the creatures which may lie hidden in the unknown, but Yifan can’t seem to think of anything which calls out to him and piques his interest.

Sighing, he internally admits his own inevitable defeat as his shoulders sag and he decides, disdainfully, that he is probably doomed and that his bachelor’s degree is probably too many light years away.

“Fan-di,” he hears to his side, and he glances over his shoulder to see his sister striding up to him with several books in her arms and a grin of excitement on her lips, clearly the bookworm of the family and Yifan has half a mind to bribe her with twenty bucks to write his paper for him. “Did you come up with a topic for your paper, yet?”

“No,” he sighs. “I can’t find anything that sounds interesting to me. Fuckin’ - this is why marine biology sucks, it’s so boring,” he complains, and his older sister’s stance shifts to one side as she shakes her head at him. “How are you doing?”

His sister smiles, having always been the breadwinner of the two. “I’m doing my report on the benefits as well as the negative side effects of sea kelp - did you know that sea kelp contains ten times more calcium than dairy milk and high amounts of our recommended daily vitamins and minerals, while it also causes hyperthyroidism and thyroid cancer in moderate-to-high doses?”

“Bingbing-jie,” he deadpans. “How much would you charge to do my report for me?”

Disdained, his sister shakes her head as she gives him an unsurprised little smile. “Fanfan-didi, you can’t just go around begging others for grades. How do you know you won’t find a topic that you really like? You could research the formation process of sea glass, or you could research the methods of camouflage used by cephalopods - or even the deterioration process from the venom from the Portuguese cnidaria - you know, the man of war?”

“But I don’t even know what to write,” he whines. “I’m no good at research papers like this. Besides, how do I know that somebody else won’t be researching the exact same topic?”

“Do you ever stop complaining?” His sister laughs, her long hair bouncing around her shoulders as her shoulders shake. “It’s fine - there’s nothing wrong with doing a report on something another person is researching, also, as long as you don’t plagiarize off of them. Would you like me to help you look for some books?”

Unsure of which way to turn, Yifan nods, for his sister has always been much book-smarter than he when Yifan has always been the most sensical sibling in his family and who would know exactly what to do would he happen to be abducted and zip-tied and tossed into the trunk of a car. As someone with over an entire grade point higher in average than he, his sister is one of the very few people that he would trust to know exactly what she was talking about in regards to taught knowledge.

Bingbing leads him over to a table in the corner of the library that lays adjacent to the wall, and with a tired little huff she sets her armful of books down onto it with a dull, heavy thud, and reaches up to tenderly massage the sore spots on her arms from where the spines of the hardback books had dug into her. “Alright, Fan,” she sighs. “Let’s see… giant isopods and crustaceans… what about the phenomenon of deep-sea gigantism?”

Disinterested and picky, his nose scrunches a little bit as he shakes his head, his dark hair swaying against his forehead.

His sister sighs. “Alright, not that one, then. Hmm… what about bacterial bioluminescence?”

Unbothered, Yifan shakes his head again.

“You can’t just say no to every idea, Fan,” his sister chastises him. “How do you know you won’t end up liking one of the topics until you try it? Especially bioluminescence, I think you might really enjoy learning about something like that - would you really not be interested in learning about what causes bacteria to grow bright blue in the Indian ocean?”

“Because that sounds boring,” he states flatly. “This fuckin’ class sucks dick - why do I have to take such boring classes just so I can graduate and say _I’ve finally become a computer science major, congrats me_.”

Bingbing laughs, then, and it doesn’t at all help his Shitty Fuckin’ Mood. “Life is unfair sometimes, Fan - get used to it. You can’t just whine and complain your way through it all because you don’t want to do a research paper on something having to do with ocean life. Besides, it’s your final exam - of all papers, you really shouldn’t miss this one, because if you fail this class and waste mother’s money, dad is going to fucking murder you.”

“Way to be supportive,” he mopes as she gathers the books back into her arms, tossing her dark hair smoothly over her shoulder.

“Fan,” she grins with tightly-pressed lips. “Supporting you was me offering to help you find a topic to research. Me doing your paper for you all because you paid me? That’s not supporting you, that’s enabling you. You’re going to be twenty-four soon - you can write your own paper.”

“But I don’t know what to write about,” Yifan sighs, and she shakes her head in disdain. “I can’t help that nothing interests me.”

His sister gives him a pressed look, for her patience has begun to wear thin and her younger brother’s childish whining certainly isn’t helping. It genuinely takes a lot for Yifan to find interest in things, but she knows firsthand that when he finds something he is interested in - such as the time back in his first year of university when he had developed an interest in mechanics and would spend hours on end dismantling computers to rummage through the parts - that it’s hard to deter him from it until he reaches his ultimate goal. The question is - which marine biological research topic would engross him so deeply that he would then successfully and wholly write his paper by himself?

She tries to think about what Yifan likes - Yifan likes the mythological and the excitement of the general unknown, which is why she would have thought that he would be interested in bioluminescence, or perhaps even the phenomenon of underwater black holes, but Yifan can also be extremely picky and whiny.

Then - she gets an idea and has a funny feeling that it might pique her brother’s interest. “Hold on one second,” she tells him as she sets her books down onto the table, before she jogs over to the far bookshelf against the wall, her long skirt swaying against her ankles and her long hair flouncing around her upper back.

Confused with his brow furrowing downward, Yifan stares at her forgotten books and back to where she had run away, as though surprised before he tries to mentally piece together what it is she could be doing. Hadn’t he looked through that bookshelf, already? Or - had he not?

When she returns, she’s got this massive book in her hands, something that seems like it would be thousands of years old with a scruffy cover and a worn spine, its skin bathed in a dark brown vinyl stain. “Here you go, Fan - do your paper on this. I can guarantee you that nobody else is doing this topic.”

Frowning, he takes the book from her. _The Lorelei_. Isn’t this some kind of fantasy fairytale book? “Why are you giving me this?” He asks her. “This is some fantasy-fiction shit, I need to research something real.”

“Fan,” she sighs. “Just trust me, will you? I have to go meet Chen-ge at the commissary - get to work, kiddo. You’ve got two weeks, and I don’t want to hear it the night before that you need me to do it for you because you’ve got no time.”

Taken back by her choice of literature to rub in his face, as though to insult his eloquence and his intellect, he finds himself unhappy as the mustiness of old written literature wafts up from the pages of the book. Is she joking with him, or something? He’s a hundred percent sure that mermaids - judging by a quick glance into the book at the pages that lie within - do not, in fact, exist. It’s the exact same premise as unicorns and fairies - they’re all immature fiction meant to appeal to young children, so why would she give him a research topic such as this when his assignment was to research something that actually exists?

Huffing to himself, he drops the book noisily onto the table and lays his palms flat across it, for he does not know which way to turn about this assignment and wishes he could somehow program interest into himself to instill within himself the motivation to do it.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
After dinnertime, Yifan routinely enjoys a brisk jog throughout the town, as it is often a surefire way of clearing his mind especially in times of stress.

It’s quite warm tonight, a cool, dry warmth that feels merely comfortable rather than stifling or sticky, and it feels refreshing against the dampness of his perspiration. The town is dimly lit at this hour, the skies darkened and the glow of the town’s lights reflects prettily off of the water, the calm trickle of the bay water a resounding tinkling din. Yifan enjoys running beside the water, for it reminds him that living on land is that much different than living below beneath the surface of the water, and it makes him feel freer and safer than if he had been running in the woods.

Of course, Bingbing is not a fan of his waterside jogs, for she says that the risk that he may be snuck up on and pushed into the water and drowned is very high, but Yifan isn’t afraid of those around him, for he knows that people would not normally pick a fight with someone of his build - tall and broad-shouldered and much harder to force into a body of water and hold down to drown than someone much shorter and lighter.

He reaches his favorite part of the trail - a narrow sand clearing devoid of trees where it meets the glistening bay water, and this is Yifan’s very favorite place to be, to just look out onto the water that glimmers under the lights and to be able to sink into willing tranquility. He finds it favorably calming to be able to hear nothing but the muted chirping of nearby birds and the rhythmic, whispering pulls of the nearby sea tides. Sighing, he rolls his shoulders back as he stretches his muscles for just a second, his hands slightly clammy against his damp skin.

However, there is something strange about tonight as compared to other nights, and Yifan doesn’t exactly know how to put his finger on it. It’s almost as though there is a shrill overlying sound just over the murmur of the water, and Yifan cannot, for the life of him, describe what it sounds like. It is not at all alarming, merely a light wash of high-pitched humming, as though whistling with vocal rather than air, and Yifan still doesn’t understand if that would be a satisfactory description of the sound. Whatever it may be, it does not scare him - although he can thoroughly see how it would become very annoying to some people, but he decides to take the safe approach and assume that the sound is no more than a medium-to-high frequency alarm call somewhere very far off, as it is so soft in tone that Yifan might have missed it had it not been fully quiet by the water.

Unthreatened, Yifan leaves it be and continues to jog along the trail, as the hum rises and falls in a natural tone and dances prettily along the wind as he follows the flow of the bay water back home.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
“Look, I’m not dead,” he smirks as he enters his sister’s room that night, having just finished his post-jog shower without her knowledge and yearning to rub it in her face that he, once again, had not been jumped by a stranger and drowned. “Told you I’d be fine.”

“Yeah, well, you’re also stalling your paper,” his sister smirks at him from her desk as he lets himself into her personal bathroom, without permission, and roots through her medicine cabinet for an unopened bottle of mouthwash. “Don’t come crying to me when you fail.”

“Says the person who handed me a fairytale book about mermaids and told me to write a research paper on it as though it would actually be a good idea. The next time I ask you for help, make sure to remind me that I’m a huge dumbass and to hire a professional tutor.”

“If you actually read the book, Fan-di,” Bingbing says off to the side as she rakes a hand through the tangles at the ends of her hair, “then you would know that it’s not fictional, actually, and you would also know that it’s impossible to say that things like mermaids just _don’t exist_ because ninety-five percent of the oceans remain unexplored.”

Rolling his eyes, Yifan decides to flop himself lazily down onto his younger brother’s bed, as his brother is currently at a friend’s house for the night - but with no plans to actually sleep in it because that’s kind of weird, no thanks, Yifan rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling in his lethargy. “Okay, but that doesn’t say that they _do_ exist. There could be underwater fucking humans down there, how are we supposed to know? With that logic, there could be like - underwater bears, and shit but that doesn’t mean that I can just do a research paper on underwater bears.”

His sister sighs, then, and shoots him a pressed look over her shoulder, and as an overachieving soon-to-be-graduate, she would have died over the fantastical excitement of researching creatures that are mythicized and are possibly in existence yet are simply out of human reach, but to have someone equally as close to graduating be ten times more disinterested than she, it can be quite bothersome. “You are hopeless,” she tells him, and Yifan sends her a comical little smirk, campy and cheeky in every way, and she shakes her head as she returns her attention back to her notes.

“By the way,” he says a few moments later, and his sister’s pencil taps idiosyncratically against her desk. “Do you know if the town is testing their emergency alarm system or something? There were weird noises out by the bay, like an alarm or a siren or something.”

“Not that I know of,” she tells him flatly before a knowing smile spreads across her pink lips. “Maybe it was the Lorelei.”

A snort. “I bet you it’s fuckin’ not. Don’t get too excited.”

“How do you know that, though?” She grins and slides an arm over the ridge of her chair. “Ninety-five percent of the oceans, Fan-di. Maybe it was a siren trying to lure you into your death, ooh - who knows?”

“Jie,” he mutters. “We live in a small ass town on the water - what makes you think out of all of the well-populated areas around the world that sirens would come seek out our town? I’m not ten anymore, you can’t fool me with this kind of thing any longer. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be working on your paper about sea kelp, also?”

“I am, yeah,” she smirks. “Wanna know how far my research has gotten compared to yours? _Seaweed is a supplementary source of iodine, a necessary element for various functions of the thyroids; iodine deficiencies have been linked to infertility, high blood pressure, intellectual disabilities in unborn fetuses, as well as certain types of cancer. Seaweed also contains an element known as calcium alginate, which has been used in medical practice as a topical agent to treat burns and promote the regeneration of skin on surface wounds, but the overuse or over-ingestion of seaweed can lead to hyperthyroidism and can act as an absorption agent like activated charcoal to block the effective properties of ingested medicine_ - ”

“Alright, I’m already bored,” Yifan groans and hoists himself up from his brother’s bed. “Jeez, I didn’t ask for you to read me to death. I’ll do my paper, I get it, _sheesh_.”

His sister smiles as he stomps out of the room with hands on his head as though feigning a headache, and she turns back to her notes with a satisfied grin on her lips. Rule number one of Getting Yifan to Do His Work: leave him with absolutely no choice between working and being bored to tears, effective nearly one-hundred percent of the time.

However, she knows that Yifan’s paper will be rushed and half-assed and that it will likely be a barely-expanded-upon outline of his original ideas that will likely get him a bare-minimum grade, and she sighs as she wishes that her brother didn’t have to be so academically stubborn all the time.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
“That’s _my_ lunch bag, though - give it back!”

“But mom said I could take it today! Besides, you don’t even have class today, jie!”

“Okay, but I was the one who bought it, not mom, and I didn’t say that you could use it, so give it back.”

“I have to eat somehow, though, and I don’t have one of my own.”

Yifan threads his hands into his hair as he struggles to maintain attention composure, staring down at the bleary words in this godforsaken book his sister had given him. _The Lorelei, dating back to the eighteen-hundreds, had been a female nixie, or shape-shifting water spirit, who has been painted into lots of different adaptations by playwrights and poets, the most famous being Clemens Brentano’s ballad Zu Bacharach am Rheine, telling of a female spirit who betrayed her romantic partner and had been accused of adultery with several men and therefore after, causing their ultimate deaths, and in her despair, she traveled to the Rhine rock in the Rhine Gorge in Germany and leaped off of it to her death. The term ‘Lorelei’ is associated with siren nixes, those folk who lure men to their deaths out of desperation for companionship and compassion rather than dutiful actions, as the tales regarding sirens causing human deaths are often out of forced duty._

He feels like rolling his eyes; this all sounds like a bunch of made-up fairytale crap, and his siblings certainly aren’t helping with their incessant arguing. Sighing, he reaches for a pen and begins to jot down notes that he deems important and hopefully useful. _Eighteen twenty-four - Heinrich Heine readapted Brentano’s ballad into a poem titled “Die Lorelei” which describes a female siren with golden hair who sat oftentimes on the cliff above the Rhine and unknowingly lead many men to their deaths with her beauty by causing them to crash their ships onto the rocks. Eighteen thirty-seven - readapted and set to music by Friedrich Silcher to become the German song “Lorelei.”_

“I don’t _have_ money to spend at the commissary because my paper route doesn’t pay me enough - if you want me to buy something so badly, you’re going to have to give me money for it yourself, jie.”

“ ** _Mom_**! Yuan-di needs lunch money!”

Yifan stands briskly from his desk, pissed off and irate beyond belief before he slams his book shut and gathers his notes, and ultimately, storms out of his bedroom. “Can you two shut the fuck up?” He argues loudly as he storms into the living area where his sister and his brother have stood face to face in the midst of their argument, his younger brother’s height equally matching his older sister’s in a comical way, but Yifan isn’t laughing. The one time he actually decides to brush his judgment aside and research this stupid mermaid folklore, his family decides to make it damn near impossible to even hear his own thoughts. Not wanting to hear any more of it, he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet and takes out a ten. “Here, di,” he hands it to his younger brother, who takes it from him with big, glossy eyes. “Get yourself a snack and an extra drink.”

“Thank you, ge,” his brother smiles. “Sorry for distracting you - I’ll get going now!”

As Yuan waves them goodbye, Yifan turns back to his sister with a gaze of annoyance. “You could have just given him five dollars, jie. You want me to work on my paper so badly, but you don’t shut up long enough to let me focus.”

“You could go to the library if you want silence,” she crosses her arms over her chest. “This is home, and people argue at home.”

“Or you could just be quiet,” he grumbles and walks away from her, stepping over to the front door for his shoes. “If you need me, I’ll be down by the water.”

“Don’t get lured to your death by any sirens,” his sister jokes behind him, and he rolls his eyes as he leaves his house.

Dismayed at how this morning’s events have unfurled, Yifan makes himself comfortable on a bench at the side of the clearing where it overlooks the water, quiet and peaceful with the hum of the murmuring water and the warmth of the early daytime sun. Gradually calming back down, Yifan outstretches his book on his lap and continues to take notes.

 _While the term ‘Lorelei’ may sometimes be used to refer to sirens and merpersons who lure humans through their call songs, the use of ‘Lorelei’ when not referring to the ancient enchantress has been seen as offensive and appropriative to German culture. When referring to feminine spirits with accompanying calls, many regard them as sirens; when referring to feminine spirits without accompanying calls, many regard them as nixies as due to European mythology._ Yifan’s brow arches; this sounds like a story he would have told Yuan when he was still in early elementary school to help him get to sleep.

He makes sure to jot down in his notes how the term is a nixie rather than a Lorelei and makes a mental note to school his know-it-all big sister on that, later. _Nixies (feminine: nixe, masculine: nix) are shapeshifting water nymphs which are said to appear as though mermaids or water-horses, and can vary depending on cultural folklore; in some cultures, the male nixies are said to be malevolent while the female nixies remain harmless, and often methodize by siren call to lure people to their deaths, while their female counterparts are said to simply sing to themselves and carry no ill intention._ He shakes his head to himself as he fills out another bullet point; how can singing force someone to lose control over themselves and allow themselves to be manipulated to that extent? Disbelieving, he can’t seem to wrap his mind around the idea.

As he studies, however, that sound reappears - that same soft, far-away, high pitched hum as though someone was whistling with their voice rather than with their breath, and Yifan glances up from his notebook in confusion. It’s not oscillating as though an alarm would mechanically rise and fall in discretion, but is merely wavering as though taking breaths, and Yifan finds himself flustered by it. It doesn’t sound like someone is crying for help, and neither does it sound like someone would be screaming, at that - so where is that sound coming from, then?

He tries to instill within himself the assumption that it could be a bird, as birds have very bizarre calls sometimes especially during mating seasons, but the sound isn’t at all clipped like a bird’s chirping would be. And besides, if it had been a town alarm, even one that had been tested for accuracy, wouldn’t the test run have been over by now?

Curious, Yifan folds his books up and decides to investigate as he stands from the bench and continues down the trail. What if it is somebody who needs help - or even a trapped animal, of sorts, who may be in a similar predicament?

As he continues along the trail where it grows closer to the shore, the sound begins to grow louder, as though it were also becoming closer in distance, also, and he begins to peek through the sunlit cracks in the brush and the trees to gaze out onto the distant beach. He looks for red - looks for anything wet-seeming and glimmering in the early sun to indicate that someone may be bleeding. He also looks for forgotten children, thinking perhaps the sound may be a child weeping somberly in confusion as to where their parents had run off to. As the path begins to clear and brings him once again to the mouth of society, faced with a crosswalk that leads toward the town’s beachside park, he sees no children and definitely no spilled blood which glistens under the sun.

And he snorts to himself as he crosses the road and heads toward the sand, as he skips over thinking about what his sister had joked with him about, for he can guarantee that this is definitely not a mermaid if anything.

The ratio of sand to ocean water is far too big, as the beach is not itself that extensive, merely a one-mile stretch of soft, flattened sand that ebbs gracefully into the foamy waters, and is on each side surrounded by jutting, froth-kissed rocks where fishermen often sit, large and blackened and quite ominous on foggy days, if Yifan is being honest. He’s never heard rural stories of people being injured on the rocks, but Yifan wouldn’t exactly put it past him should someone, perhaps even a curious little child, decide to climb onto one and accidentally tumble to their death from the slippery rocks.

Out here, however, the sound is much clearer as though it were right next to him, and he wonders what kind of a sound has to be produced for it to resonate across an entire town. Out here, it sounds much more like high-pitched singing, cooed and delicate as it floats along the breeze, but why would someone come out to the beach just to sing? Yifan finds himself snorting out a laugh and shaking his head at the thought, for it sounds silly to know that someone would sit on the beach and just sing to nobody other than themselves.

As he begins to walk across the sand - barefoot, might he add - he finds himself confused. There is a person sitting on one of the rocks, simply sitting still as they look out onto the water, and Yifan would think nothing of it had the person not been stark naked. Immediately thinking they may be homeless, Yifan walks forward to catch their attention. “Hey!” He calls out as he approaches the rocks, his bare feet barely pressing into the rigid, packed, damp sand where the sea foam ebbs and fizzles out. “Hey, can you hear me?”

As though deaf, the person does not respond to him, but Yifan can tell from this angle that the person is most definitely a boy and that he is most definitely the one who has been singing, lips pursed delicately as he hums, and Yifan has to wonder just why someone would strip down to butt-nakedness just to sing on the beach. The whole premise is hilarious, really.

“Hello?” He repeats loudly, a little aggravated that he is being ignored, as it doesn’t make a lot of sense to him for a deaf person to be able to sing so in-tune. As it becomes more obvious that this boy, at this point, must simply be ignoring him, Yifan takes the initiative to set his books down onto a drier patch of sand, rolls up the legs of his jeans to his upper calves, and begins to climb the rocks.

If he may be a leper, then Yifan needs to bring him back to the town to receive help and hopefully link him to existing family members, that way someone may claim him. “Hey,” he repeats as he hoists himself to the top of one of the rocks, mere several feet from the boy, now, and it’s only now that the boy recognizes his presence, and the sound abruptly stops as the boy’s head turns to him.

He’s got to be younger than Yifan, there’s no way that he’s older than him, and he’s got these _strikingly_ blue eyes, as blue as the daytime skies, and where his pale, damp hair frills around his face, Yifan can see the gloss of little dark, round things in the strands of the boy’s hair, and he can’t tell if they are decorations or the backs of beetles, or something of the like.

“Hi, I was talking to you,” Yifan repeats flatly. “What are you doing up here? Please tell me you’re not gonna jump, ‘cause I really don’t want to have to call the police.” Yet as though not understanding, the boy's head swivels just a tiny bit, cocking to the side as it brings his face downward and away from the sunlight as though to see Yifan better. His lips move in little increments as though wanting to speak, but Yifan has an eerie feeling that he either can’t - or maybe, even, isn’t supposed to. “Hello?” He repeats. “You can understand me, yeah?”

As the boy stares at him, Yifan watches as his little lips part beneath the haze of the sunlight, and it’s in this light that Yifan can see the dried salt on his cheeks, flaky and white as though little hairs back behind his cheeks. Slowly, the boy’s lips begin to move. “Understand,” he says quietly, as though it takes an effort to do so, and it gives Yifan a little bit of relief to know that at least this boy is probably from within this general area, and is maybe just lost, or something. Judging by the dried salt on his face as well as his arms and legs, Yifan has a feeling this boy had just gone swimming, but who goes skinny dipping in the ocean?

“Alright, well,” Yifan laughs awkwardly. “You shouldn’t really stay up here - you could get hurt on these rocks, yeah? Where did you put your clothes? I could go get them for you.”

It’s quite awkward sitting out in the blatant open next to a young man who sits stark naked and covered in dried salt on an oceanside rock, especially one who seems to speak with clipped grammar, the same way a developing child would. When the boy’s gaze dims, then, as though a door closing, Yifan can tell that he doesn’t understand him, and he can’t seem to make sense of why that might be.

“Your clothes,” Yifan says, and he reaches down to pull at the front of his own shirt. “Clothes - you know, shirt, pants, shoes. Do you have any?”

As the words float along the whisper of the ocean, however, the boy’s eyes track the movement and he glances down at the dark gray tweed of Yifan’s shirt. It’s only then that the boy’s chin raises, and his right eye falls back into the glare of the sunlight, the blue of his iris illuminating blindingly into an icy tone. His gaze is so piercing that Yifan almost finds it intimidating, as though the boy is looking into him, and he finds his wordlessness strangely eerie.

Then - the boy lifts a hand to reach out to him, curious and inexperienced, and it’s only then that Yifan sees it. There is webbing between his fingers, too reptilian to be human, and Yifan finds himself afraid to have webbed fingers touch his face.

Startled, Yifan rears back as though the boy was a monster, his fingers rearing back from his stabilized grip on the rock as he begins to slip, grunting out in surprise as his weight heaves, and he finds the algae having coated the edge of the stone slippery and unforgiving, and he barely gets to see the sight of the boy lurching forward speechlessly as he yells out in surprise, falling backward toward the water below.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
 

 

   
Slippery fingers slide against the man’s cool skin, tapping his cheek daintily yet rapidly as though in a panic. He scorns himself deep down for having grown shy, for he had felt it - immediately, within seconds of soaking up the sight of the stranger with his dark hair and his dark, mysterious eyes - that he was the one he had been calling for all this time.

Yet if he hadn’t been so careless as to get choked up with the stranger, he wouldn’t have forced him to nearly plummet to his own death. He knows he disobeyed the most important cultural rule he was taught to always follow but to think to kill such an attractive, curious man… he couldn’t find it within himself at that moment to bring himself to do it. He had been close - could have simply reached for the man’s throat rather than his cheek and could have easily crushed it in one hand and would have had hot, rich, human blood pour over his fingers like always, but this time it had felt different. This time, he hadn’t felt a desire to follow his cultural duties, and this time he felt attracted to the human for once.

Sighing, he traces the raised shapes of the man’s tall nose, his soft, salt-puckered lips, and the long, glistening points of his damp eyelashes, and sighs to himself as he recalls what he’s done. He shouldn’t have saved him, for it goes against everything he had been raised to believe, but…

Riddled with self-upset, he props himself up on both arms and begins to hum aloud, cascading along with the breath of the wind as he fills the air with the soothing sound of his call.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

   
  
“Jie!”

His sister jumps where she’d been walking past the campus gates and turns briskly on her heel, her long hair swaying behind her as she turns to him with widened eyes. Yifan wasn’t supposed to be on campus at this hour - hadn’t his class ended over an hour ago? Nevertheless, she takes a steadying breath as her brother catches up with her. “What are you doing here?” She asks aloud, unsure what has become of her brother’s stereotypically passive attitude to make him seem so excited to tell her something. The way he bounces in his steps seems as though he’s got a secret itching beneath his skin.

“Jie, I have to talk to you about something,” he tells her with clipped breaths. “Do you remember how I asked you about that alarm noise I’ve been hearing out by the bay?”

Her eyebrows furrow, “The one you said you heard the other day while you were jogging? Yeah - I told you it was probably nothing.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Yifan tells her as he shakes his head. “I - okay, I don’t really know how to explain this, but bear with me, okay? So - earlier this morning, when I left to head down there to go study? I heard that sound again - that same alarm, or that siren, whatever that sound was, I heard it again. So, I got curious and I decided to go see if I could find where it was coming from, yeah, because I was worried that maybe someone was hurt and needed medical help.”

“Where are you going with this, Fan-di?” She sighs. “I have class soon.”

Yifan presses his lips together, then, and raises a hand. “Let me finish really quick. So the sound brought me to the beach - you know, the park down off the highway with the big rocks? Jie, there was a guy sitting on one of the rocks, just… singing butt-naked, and I was like _hey, what the fuck’s the matter with you?_ I thought he could have been homeless, or something, because he seemed like he couldn’t hear me and couldn't understand me, but then he tried to reach out and touch me and - you wouldn’t believe it, jie, but he had webbed fingers, and I panicked and I fell off of the rock - ”

“You fell off of the rock?” His sister shouts out, drawing attention from the other passersby heading to their own respective destinations on campus, and Yifan is quick to hush her in order to continue. “What were you doing on those rocks, Fan-di? You know that’s dangerous!”

“Just listen!” He stresses. “I - I think this guy saved me, jie, because the next thing I knew, I was laying all the way up on the sand and my books and my shoes had been brought to me, and he wasn’t on the rock anymore. Jie, this kid was some kind of human polymorph or some shit, I had to come tell you because it just - it sounds way too crazy and I swear I might have even hallucinated, but I know I didn’t. You gotta believe me, jie.”

His sister gives him a strange look as though in slight disbelief, and her lips crinkle where she ponders this new information. “Fan, if you’re trying to fool me all because you started reading the mermaid book, it’s not going to work. Are you sure you didn’t just see a normal kid? Besides, lots of people like to sing - that’s not an otherworldly characteristic of humans.”

“No, jie, you don’t understand,” he reiterates. “There was something about him that just… wasn’t human, or at least, not fully. I know for a fact that I had seen the webbing between his fingers and that there just - I don’t think a normal human could have saved me like that, jie, and there’s no way a normal human’s singing could have been loud enough for me to hear it all the way across town.”

“So what are you telling me this for?” Bingbing shakes her head as she laughs to herself, her shoulders shaking. “I told you, things like this have to exist in one way or another because only ninety-five percent of the oceans have been discovered.”

Yifan sighs. “You don’t believe me. I want to come show you - when do you have time to come with me?”

“Well, I could come after my next class when you’re going for your evening jog. You said you hear the singing almost every time you pass the bay now, right?”

“Almost every time,” he nods. “I want you to hear it for yourself - I need to know that I’m not crazy and I need to know whether or not this guy is human or some kind of weird combination reptile.”

“Yifan, don’t say that,” she shakes her head disapprovingly. “That’s offensive to merpeople - _combination reptile_ , what’s the matter with you? Alright - I’ll come with you tonight, Yifan-didi. Please don’t hover outside my class door for an hour and a half to wait for me to finish, though.”

“Thank you, jie,” he smiles, lurching forward to wrap his arms around her in thanks. “I’ll be ready by the time you get home from class - make sure to wear something comfortable! If I’m going jogging, so are you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” his sister rolls her eyes. “Go home, you. I have to get to class, and you have to get home and work on your report, don’t you?”

“Tonight,” he reminds her with a comically pressed gaze, and she laughs and shakes her head humorously. “You can’t back out.”

“I get it, Fan-di,” she says. “Go home.” As her brother bids her adieu, she lets out a calming exhale and turns on her heel to head toward the sixth building on the right side where her evening class lies. Wrapped in her own thoughts about their planned field trip later tonight, she shakes her head, for it seems far too likely that should there exist anything within the planet’s oceans that had not yet been documented, that it certainly wouldn’t linger on the shores of their very small town.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

   
  
As Yifan drags her toward the clearing, she wheezes tiredly behind him as she attempts to force him to slow down and allow her permission to catch her breath - and it’s only as the murmur of the water becomes evident that Yifan truly stops, that he truly releases his grip on her wrist, and that he truly turns around to face her with an eerily expectant smile on his face. There is the sound once again - the boy’s singing that he had been listening to the past several nights straight. “There it is,” he tells her quickly, and his sister huffs at him as she lifts crossed arms, miles exhausted with Yifan and his shenanigans. “Don’t tell me you don’t hear that.”

However, his sister’s eyes are dimmed, her gaze pressed as though disbelieving, and her expression goes blank before she shakes her head, clearly on a much different playing field than he. “I don’t hear anything,” she mumbles, and Yifan’s shoes crunch on the roughness of the gravel. “Fan, you told me I would hear this boy of yours singing.”

“What the,” he begins, his eyebrows furrowing. The sound is exactly as loud as he knows it to be, oscillating in naturally clipped tones as though someone whistling or humming. “How can you not hear that?”

Confused, his sister’s lips purse. “Because I don’t? I don’t know how you want me to answer that question, Fan-di. Besides, if there’s nothing here for me to see or hear, I’m going to head back home because it’s getting late and I should have a shower before bed.”

“What?” Yifan calls out in disdain. “No, you can’t leave! I - I swear, jie, I’m not making this up. Look - come to the beach with me and you’ll see - that’s where he likes to be, he sits on those rocks and sings, I swear.”

“Di,” she sighs. “It’s late - maybe you just had a dream about this boy that may have felt real to you - maybe it was so vivid that you thought that it actually happened. Look, you have been studying that book pretty hard - maybe you’ve let all this mermaid talk get to your head, di. You should be calling it a night, too - it sounds, to me, like you’re running on too high of a lack of sleep, mister.”

“But - ” he whines, knowing for a fact that he can still continue to hear the call no matter what she says. “But I hear it.”

“I never said you didn’t,” Bingbing tells him gently, “but I think you’ve overhyped this mirage to the point where I think you’re starting to hallucinate, di, and that’s not healthy. You need more sleep. Come on, let’s head back home, and then if you really still hear it tomorrow, I’ll come to the beach with you to check it out.”

Yifan nods, then, sighing to himself for he knows that there’s no way around arguing with his sister, for maybe she is right - although he never in a million years would have been able to imagine those striking blue eyes simply from the crevices of his own limited imagination, he does suppose that maybe he’s taken the situation too far. Maybe the boy was just lost and was just trying to gain some alone time. Perhaps Yifan had imagined the boy seeming too foreign to be of this general realm of living, but perhaps he hadn’t, and Yifan is not sure if he will find out if he had been right or wrong if nobody else can experience what he is, for it only makes him seem like he’s absolutely gone out of his mind.

“You know, di,” his sister says as they turn back and the sound fades away, then, her voice soft as though secretive, as though keeping something between just the two of them. “In folklore, it is said that sometimes sirens live by regulation through a mating system, and sometimes, the sirens who experience the presence of a mate in close proximity oftentimes will change their call so that only their mate will be able to hear it. When I say change their call, I mean they will have a call different than the ones they use to lure a mass population to certain death. I’m not saying that’s what’s going on, but I’m just saying, that is a theory that exists regarding sirens.”

He snorts, then. “I don’t think I’m this kid’s mate, jie, no offense. He’s like, a weirdo skinny-dipper with webbed fingers and beetles in his hair. I don’t even think he understood what the fuck I was saying, ‘cause he just sat there like he was deaf and just looked at me like I wasn’t doing anything more than staring at him.”

“Well, maybe he was just shy,” his sister shrugs her shoulder and gives him a little smile under the cool moonlight, and before Yifan knows it, they’ve exited the sand path that trails through the loosely-wooded forest and they've made it back to the familiarity of his neighborhood, dark beneath the indigo sky and the glow from the golden streetlamps. “I mean, you are lucky to have mom’s genes rather than dad’s or else you and Yuan wouldn’t be so handsome. Yuan’s going to be a sight for sore eyes when he finishes growing, di, can you believe he’s already fifteen?”

“No offense, jie, but I don’t think the person I’m going to marry is going to be a weird reptilian man,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “Besides, he didn’t even have a mermaid’s tail, so how could he have been a siren?”

Bingbing thinks this over for a long moment, crossing the road with him and heading around the corner down their own avenue that leads to their house. “If we’re being anatomically and politically correct,” she tells him softly, her sneakers hissing on the pavement, “then - if we’re assuming that he is some type of mythical being hidden in that ninety-five percent of the ocean and that he could, perhaps, be a siren with the ability to shapeshift and hide their ophidian features - he could very well be a nixie.”

Falling quiet as they reach their front lawn, Yifan stops her with a hand on her wrist. Nixie - that word had been in his book. “A nix,” he corrects her, his brow furrowed downward in pensive thought. “That’s the masculine counterpart, isn’t it?”

“You’re right,” she grins at him, impressed. “So you have been reading your book. I’m impressed, Fan-di. Nixies are polymorphous water nymphs who can take on many forms - often in folklore, the nixies who present as sirens often take the form of those whom they have manipulated and lured. If who you’ve been seeing is a young man around your age, then what you may be seeing is the form of the last person he had lured to their demise with his voice.”

“So if he killed me,” Yifan mumbles, stopping at the mouth of their concrete walkway, “then he would take my appearance?”

“Exactly,” his sister nods. “They’re body bandits. That’s why you need to be careful with whatever may be out there because even if you aren’t lying and what you have been experiencing may be a simple siren and not a nixie, you need to be very careful that he doesn’t manipulate you.”

“I think I’ll be fine, jie,” he laughs. “Though that would be really cool, to be able to steal someone’s appearance and all you have to do is lure them to their own personal demise by singing - that sounds so rad.”

“Alright, di, it’s time for you to go to bed.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

   
  
Devout, Yifan finds himself on a mission.

There’s no way he had imagined seeing that boy, and there’s no way he had imagined hearing him, either. Whether or not his sister had been truthful with him about additionally hearing the sound with her own ears, Yifan cannot be certain, but he knows that as far as reminiscence goes, that he had truly experienced stumbling upon those rocks and had truly seen the boy with his own two eyes, and had truly had his life saved from sure death by the only person in that vicinity that day.

And if Bingbing doesn’t believe him, then Yifan knows he is going to have to get some kind of proof that the boy really does exist and that he isn’t just fooling around with exhaustion-induced hallucinations.

So, that afternoon, Yifan leaves his books home and brings with him a Polaroid camera, automatically-developing and simplistic enough to obtain photographic evidence. If this boy really turns out to be something other than human, however, then his sister is going to be exactly the person to decide that for him.

The humming is a little bit softer, today, although Yifan has noticed in a pattern that the noise is habitually louder at night than it is during the day. Whether or not that is out of fear that passersby may hear it, as well, Yifan isn’t sure, but he knows that at least he can hear it and that knowledge alone is enough for him.

When he gets to the beach, he’s at least several ounces more relieved than he had been to see that the boy is exactly where he would expect him, pondering the sand on the beach with bare feet, and Yifan’s certainly glad that the boy is clothed today, in little shorts and a short-sleeved shirt that is fluorescent white against the sunlight. “Hey!” He calls out, abandoning his slip-on shoes to jog across the sand barefoot, and he finds it quite miraculous, really, that the boy seems to hear him as he jitters in his spot and regards him with big eyes even from afar, startlingly blue in the beam of the sun. “Hey, I um,” Yifan stammers as he comes within a close distance to the boy, who peeks up at him from beneath pale, unsaturated hair that is decorated with dozens of small, black, shiny objects once again. “I meant to thank you for saving me the other day. You know, when I fell off of the rock. I probably would have died if you hadn’t been there, so - I reward you with a belated thank you. I know it’s late - I got preoccupied with some other shit.”

Silently, the boy’s spine straightens, and Yifan’s gaze follows the movement until he recognizes the shapes of various seashells in the boy’s little hands, and there it is - the factor that Yifan had been debating his own sanity over, the thin, glassy webbing of iridescent skin between each of the boy’s fingers at each middle knuckle, dipping lowly in each center part. What is suddenly uncharacteristic, however, is the way the boy actually registers his speech with a languid nod of his head, pallid hair falling down into his eyes, and it’s then that he hears from the boy’s curved little mouth, “You’re welcome.”

Startled, Yifan’s eyebrows raise. “You can hear me? Wait - you can understand me, too?”

As though it had been an improper question to ask, the boy’s gaze sharpens a smidge. “Should I not?” He asks, the pitch of his voice a post-pubescent middle-ground.

“Well,” Yifan mumbles awkwardly, a hand coming up to smooth the back of his short, dark hair. “You acted like you couldn’t even hear me the other day, and I thought you might have had very little experience with the spoken language, so…”

In hindsight, the boy didn’t _have_ to save his life, for it had been Yifan’s own fault that he nearly drowned and died in the wrath of the frothing tide. As though chewing the idea to himself, the boy glances down at the seashells laid in his palms before shifting the weights of them into his non-dominant hand and lifting a single shell in delicate fingers, taking several steps forward before handing it out for him to take. When Yifan catches on and does take it from him, he sees that it’s a perfectly-shaped rose petal tellin, beautifully baby pink in color that fades into a muted scarlet at the apex where the two halves connect. “These are my favorite,” the boy tells him. “I regard them as the cherry blossoms of the sea. Would you not agree?”

As he takes the shell and admires it with soft eyes, Yifan finds himself confused by this strange dynamic the boy seems to hold. “I, uh, I mean, I guess so,” he decides to go with, the ridges of the shell spiky against the soft skin on his palm. “Are you - you’re not from around here, are you?”

“Am I?” The boy asks. “What is _around here_?”

This time, Yifan’s brow knits. “Uh… from town? How do you not know what that means?”

“We all live in an unwalled infinitude where humans use constrictive terms such as _town_ and _state_ to minimize communities,” the boy says, and Yifan’s jaw nearly drops at how much his grammar flip-flops from immature and childish to utterly philosophical and all-knowing. “To say that I am not from _around here_ is constraintive.”

“Who are you?” Yifan asks quickly, taking a few cautious steps back. “ _What_ are you?”

It is far too strange for Yifan to make sense of this event - to meet a boy with decorations in his hair and no common human knowledge, there’s absolutely no way this kid could be just a normal young man looking for his home. He seems far too content existing around the beach and collecting his seashells, as well as lingering about in the nude and singing to himself in a voice resonant enough for Yifan to hear it for miles.

“Me?” The boy asks him. Then, the boy takes several languid, slow steps forward that bring his shorter self within very close proximity, his eyes icy and abnormally aqua-blue, and, as though curious, he reaches forth a little hand and delicately traces the shape of Yifan’s smooth cheekbone.

Out of unfamiliarity, Yifan jerks back away from the touch, not exactly a fan of having strangers touch him. “What are you doing?” He asks uncomfortably.

“You are,” the boy mumbles softly, “quite a beautiful human. What is your name?”

The student’s lips part with a soft sound; alright, now he’s convinced that he must have taken something to put him under some kind of influence because this conversation, as well as the encounter itself, makes absolutely no sense and it’s a little bit weird. “Yifan,” he mutters, his expression twisted in confusion. “Can you… not touch me, please? That’s... kind of weird.”

“Yifan,” the boy repeats calmly. “What are you doing down here, Yifan? Why did you come to find me?”

“You wouldn’t stop singing,” Yifan snorts. “I thought someone might have been hurt, or something, because I didn’t understand why I had been able to hear you sing from all the way across town. Do you have some kind of secret megaphone or something?”

Then, the boy smiles at him, his cheeks rounding as his lips curl, and the intensity of his irises seems to dim just for a second as though having been soothed, and Yifan begins to feel a sense of comfort worm its way into his chest. “You could hear me,” he comments cheerfully. “Did you like it?”

“Uh,” he mumbles in confusion. “I… guess so? Look, this is kind of weird, so do you, like - need help getting home, or something? I wouldn’t mind escorting you home if you need help finding your way back.”

“Yifan,” the boy tells him quickly, and the student’s hair brushes briskly away from his forehead as the wind begins to pick up. “I already am home.”

Then, as the whisper of the wind brushes past his ears, Yifan feels something inside of himself telling him to glance down at his hand where the seashell lies, and it’s actually really fucking creepy to see that the single tellin has now become two, individually clasped mollusk shells laid in his hand as though a matched pair, and when he looks back up, the boy is nowhere to be found. However, on the sand where the boy had once stood, lies a small pendant, curled up delicately with a wound silver chain, and when Yifan bends to pick it up, he realizes that the pendant is a mollusk-shell locket, two halves of a speckled egg cockle clasped together. Sighing, he runs the pad of his thumb over the round of it as the chain slips between his fingers. “Goddammit, kid, stop running away from me.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

   
  
“Jie, I need your help,” Yifan sighs as he tugs on his older sister’s arm, pouting childishly. “I need you to find me some more books about nixies.”

“Oh?” His sister smiles. “You’re really getting into your paper, aren’t you?”

Knowing very well that his report is not why he is seeking out more mythical knowledge, but additionally knowing very well that his sister does not believe him whatsoever about the boy on the beach, Yifan only nods his head in agreement, deciding to go along with the illusion. “Yeah, I - I decided to focus on the nixies rather than the legend of the Lorelei.”

“Alright, alright, Fan-di,” his sister shakes her head and strides forward to head toward the bookshelf at the far end of the library beneath the science-fiction wall plaque. “Let’s see… what are you looking for in particular? Like, are you looking for the origins of the mythology behind nixies and sirens, are you looking for records of proof of them, or what?”

“I need to know how the nixies live,” he tells her. “I need to know where they live, what they do, everything about them that you can find.”

“You’re getting really into this,” his sister laughs. “Alright, let’s see… we’ve got this one about ancient European mythology, which will probably include things like the legend of the Lorelei as well as things like the Lochness monster. There’s also this one - it’s about the legends of the sirens and how nixies are similar and also how they differ. I don’t think the library is going to have any books about the nixies in particular… well, I mean, there’s this one about anthropomorphic water nymphs…”

“That should be perfect,” he smiles and takes the books from her to check out. “Thank you so much, jie, I’ll make it up to you!”

As Yifan turns away and strides toward the check-out desk, Bingbing shakes her head in disbelief, laying petulant hands on her hips as she watches him. “What a weird child,” she comments, grinning to herself as Yifan presents his once-again enigmatic behavior in regards to his on-off interest in doing his homework. Satisfied that he is taking initiative, however, she watches him thank the library helper before she turns back to her own work.

 

  
 

 

* * *

 

 

 

   
  
For once, the boy is not in a precarious spot on the beach, nor is he on the rocks, which only further cements Yifan’s idea to catch him in action.

Fresh out of class for the day, Yifan sits on the dry, smooth sand with his feet crossed beneath himself and his books stacked beside him, one of the new ones his sister had given him spread out on his lap and bookmarked to a page about how and where the water nymphs live. Simply days ago, Yifan would never have even thought twice about fabricated legends having to do with water nymphs and mermaids and sirens, but due to the recent events involving what his sister believes to be a hallucination of a boy down on this very beach with webbed fingers and inhumanly vivid eyes, Yifan could beg to differ.

Even if he’s got this all wrong and even if the boy is a perfectly normal human who… maybe had some kind of cosmetic surgery to attach webbing to his middle knuckles - which Yifan is sure _must_ exist, for there are existing surgeries to have a forked tongue as well as colored scleras - but even so, the events which have transpired just don’t add up. There should be no reason humanly possible that Yifan should be able to hear his singing from miles away and not even his own sister could hear it after having approached it, nor should there be a reason why the boy was able to disappear in the blink of an eye as though he were made of smoke, or something. Something isn’t right, and Yifan finds himself fascinated.

“Nixies can appear as what they desire most to be as well as take on the form of that which their mate has also,” he reads out to himself, second-handedly jotting down notes as he goes. “When not disguised, nixies can appear as sibilous anomalies often resembling daemons or water horses. The fuck?” He snorts to himself, humored by the text. Imagining the boy as a water horse is quite funny, in all honesty.

There’s got to be something here that will tell him about polymorphous sirens and things of the like, because Yifan needs to know exactly why it is that this kid acts so strangely as compared to every other human being he’s ever met, between the disappearances, to the avoiding of humanly-characteristic questions.

And since the kid had disappeared so quickly the other day, Yifan hadn’t gotten a chance to photograph him to prove to his sister that he’s not crazy.

“Nixies often copulate in mating cycles,” he reads quietly to himself, “in which their mates are biologically assigned per life cycle and this will take them instinctually toward their mate in order to lure them in. Nixies who present as sirens will attract mates through siren calls, or songs, while nixies who present as nymphs will often use hypnosis and subconscious telepathy.”

Yifan frowns; he had assumed, obviously out of common sense, that his sister had been pulling his leg about this kid coming to their town to seek him out as a mate - but is the idea that crazy? Then again, how does Yifan even know that it’s he who the boy has eyes on?

Well, he supposed the fact that nobody else in the entire town has managed to notice the fact that every single night, something on the beach resonates a call loud enough to be heard by everybody if they simply stood outside of their houses and waited on their front porches for the sound to arrive. Yifan wants to refute the thought that having himself be the only aware receiver of the noise must mean that he has been biologically assigned as this boy’s mate or something, but it doesn’t sound right in his threshold of human common sense. Humans don’t have mates, because they no longer follow biological rules that animals do. If Yifan finds someone who doesn’t seem right for him, all he has to do is break up with them, and if he finds someone who is, then he has the choice to keep them around - human mating has _choices_ , and it’s simply bizarre to think of a way of life in which there are no choices.

Wait - hadn’t his sister said something about sirens and nymphs luring their mates to their deaths?

Recalling their conversation, Yifan flips several pages in search of anything having to do with an acquainted murder. Surely there must be something in one of these books that will tell him about how sirens used to lure mated men to their deaths - or was it strangers who are lured to their deaths? Then again, how would they be signaled if they were not to be biologically paired with the nymph if those who are uninvolved cannot hear their songs? Huffing quietly, Yifan finds himself confused.

“What are you doing?”

Jerking, Yifan’s pencil spills from his grip and tumbles to the sand below, for he hadn’t expected to not be alone while doing his research today, and he’s truthfully not at all surprised - and can take a calming breath with a palm pressed to his chest to quell his rapid heartbeat - when he sees the boy knelt in front of him as he peers at him curiously, his pale hair curtained in little waves over his forehead and decorated with those small, black, shiny things that Yifan has yet to identify. “I, uh,” he stammers. “I’m working on homework,” he decides to go with.

The boy regards him with a soft, flat gaze, unswayed in either biased direction before his head tilts to the side and he rests his cheek comfortably against his arms where they’re crossed over his knees. “You’re lying,” he says in a small voice, as though childishly. “You’re frightened by me… aren’t you?”

“No,” Yifan quips quickly, not wanting to appear suspicious. “I was just… working on my notes for a paper for class, that’s all. You know, a final-exam paper? Kind of really important, you see, and could make or break my grade for this class.”

At this, the boy lifts his face from his hands, his chin high as he glances down under his lashes at the books strewn around Yifan’s long, crossed legs, the forgotten pencil sat on the sand beside one of the man’s large socked feet. “Oh,” he coos quietly, and in a moment of gentility, reaches out with a small hand and picks up the student’s pencil to hand it to him. Lips pressed tightly together out of the situational awkwardness, Yifan gives him a forced nod.

“I was waiting for you,” Yifan says offhandedly as he folds up his notebook and stacks together his books so they do not all become submerged beneath the soft, glassy sand.

However, he hadn’t expected for the boy’s expression to absolutely light up in joy, his irises beginning to frost over as the dull beryl tone they had been when frightful dies away and begins to glow brightly. “You were?” The boy asks him in an excited tone, and Yifan’s face contorts in disorientation, for none of this makes any sense.

“I wanted to ask you some questions,” Yifan nods, and the boy makes a joyous move to sink down from his knees and fold his legs criss-cross. Assuming that the boy is now going to hover before him like an excited pupil eager to learn, Yifan leans back as he reaches a hand into his front jeans pocket. “Besides, I think you left this here.”

From his pocket, he procures the locket which he had found on the sand, the same silver-chained cockle which had been left for him in wake of the boy’s disappearance. However, the boy does not take it from him and glances up at him with knowing eyes. “That’s not mine,” he says, and Yifan’s brow furrows as he looks at the locket dangling from his fingers. Then - “I left that for you.”

Yifan looks up at him with a pressed gaze. “You left this for me? Why would you leave something like this for me?”

“I wanted you to remember me,” the boy smiles brightly at him, his curved lips spreading back to expose pretty little teeth with short, sharpened canines. “Do you like it?”

Although unfamiliarly unusual, Yifan finds himself wordless at the sentiment, for he has never had someone make such a devoutly romantic move toward him in such a way that would nowadays be considered cheesy. For someone to be so brazen and so genuine, it makes warmth bloom deep in Yifan’s chest. “It’s pretty,” he admits, for the shell really is cute, and the chain has looped through a puncture in the apex of the shell as though intentional. “Are you - why would you want me to remember you? Did you want me to come back?”

Then, the boy’s face turns bashful, his cheeks flourishing in peachy tones beneath the sunlight, and Yifan’s heartbeat skips. “I didn’t think you would come back,” he admits, and Yifan watches as the boy reaches down with little webbed fingers and sifts them through the sand, and Yifan watches as the sand slides against his glassy skin. “Humans like you don’t normally treat me as one of your own.”

Lips parting with a soft sound, the locket suddenly feels heavy in his palm, as though carrying the weight of something much deeper behind it. Has this boy attempted to hone in on other people before, rather than creatures? Yifan wonders how this biological-mating thing actually works and if a choice of preference has anything to do with it, for what happens if a biological mate says no? Yifan knows that feelings cannot be forced, and to think of people having to suffer from one-sided feelings due to matters they cannot control actually stings quite a bit. “You’re not like me,” Yifan comments gently, “are you?”

A little smile. “Not exactly,” he says, and Yifan gives a nod as he lays the pendant down onto the sand between them, “but you knew that already, didn’t you? Otherwise, why would you have those books with you?”

Yifan looks at him with bated shock, caught red-handed. “I, uh…”

“It’s okay,” the boy grins. “You said it yourself, Yifan - that it didn’t make sense for you to hear my song all the way across town. You are, whether you realize it or you don’t, a lot more intelligent than you let people believe you are.”

“Yeah, well, my sister refuses to believe that you’re real,” the student snorts. “I tried telling her about your song a few nights ago and I tried to bring her to the bayside so she could hear it, but she couldn’t hear anything, and she told me I was hallucinating from not enough sleep. Too much fuckin’ cramming and studying, you know? She probably thinks I’m a huge dumbass.”

“Classically conditioned human nature is meant to be that way,” the boy says to him, and the wind rustles past his pale hair and sweeps it delicately along his forehead, the black decorations sparkling against the glimmering sunlight. “Those who are not meant to see will never see.”

This is what makes this kid so interesting - if, for some reason, he does turn out to be a figment of Yifan’s imagination, then why would Yifan have his minimal proofs of the boy’s existence, both in the way his life had been saved after their first encounter as well as the cockle pendant? Yifan is absolutely sure there had been nobody nearby during either event and therefore, the boy has never been imaginary. “You don’t seem to answer questions very often,” Yifan notes as he leans back on his hands, the warm sun bearing down on his partially-exposed skin. “Is that just a force of habit?”

“Not particularly,” is the answer he receives. “Humans simply ask too many questions, and more often than not, carry ill intention, as well, with what they will do with the information they receive afterward.”

“Wow,” Yifan comments, eyebrows raised. “You’re… really intelligent, actually. How old are you? If you don't mind me asking, that is. I swear that I’m not asking so that I can go tell the federal bureau and fact-check you on the national census.”

The stranger gives him an airy little laugh, a precious little sound that Yifan finds himself finding comfort in, as though there were nothing wrong in the world at that very moment. “I can tell you that I’m not much younger than you are, Yifan. The dawn of the ninth fortnight before the summer solstice is where my age lies, the product of such doubled like mine eyes.”

“Kid, can you not talk in lyrics? I’m a computer science major, not a philosophy major.”

“I cannot,” the boy shakes his head, the black beads swaying with the locks of his salted hair. “You already know enough about me, do you not? It would be no fun if I made my identity too easily readable”

Yifan sighs, “Alright, well, can I at least know your name, then? I’ve already asked you that and I don’t even need your last name or even a middle initial. I just would like to know what to call you, at least, other than _that weird boy who lives down on the beach and who also has webbed fingers and sings a lot._ ”

The boy doesn’t answer him right away - rather, the boy looks down at the tunic he dons and delves a little hand into the pocket over his breast. “I’ll play a game with you, Yifan,” the boy says sweetly. “If you can figure out the answer all by yourself, then I will give you permission to know more about me. This way, I have ease in discovering those who show true devotion in my personality rather than my anatomy.”

As Yifan nods, somewhat eager to know about this game and to know where the boy is taking this, he is awarded two seashells from the boy’s pocket, one which Yifan immediately recognizes as an oyster shell, dark brown and pinstriped, while the other he’s seen many times but has never known how to call it. “Is this the game?” He asks in a mumbled tone as he stares down at the shells in his broad palm, and with a curious finger, pushes them around and turns them on their sides.

The boy does not respond, for when Yifan looks up, there is no longer anyone there.

Standing up, alarmed, Yifan looks around, absolutely sure that the boy must still be visible running away somewhere because how would he just up and poof out of sight? However, the boy is nowhere to be found, and Yifan lets out an exasperated sigh as this same thing has happened for a second time now. “God fucking dammit,” he swears aloud to himself, exhausted of this silly tirade.

As he brushes his thumb over the shells in his hand, he lets out a humorless little laugh and shakes his head. He’s gone batshit crazy, hasn’t he? First, he’d been having auditory hallucinations, hearing things that nobody else apparently can, and now he’s being toyed with by what seems to be a spirit who hands him seashells before disappearing. This whole escapade is absolutely insane, and Yifan really must be losing his mind.

When he bends down to gather his books to head home, however, his notebook is opened and is spread out across the sand, when Yifan knows that he had closed his notebook and stacked his books up neatly. Concerned, his brow furrows as he kneels to close his notebook and return his pen to the spiraled spine - when his eye catches something on the top of the page that it had been opened to.

_Name me in consecutive beats of three, and to the locked door, you will find the key._

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

   
  
Meticulously, Yifan stares at the two seashells beneath the dim golden glow of his desk lamp, his hands folded over his mouth as he studies them with extensive visual detail. There’s got to be something to these shells if the boy had decided to play him with riddles mere seconds after handing the shells to him. One of them is a dark, glossily-embossed oyster shell, Yifan knows that to be fact. Where he finds himself stumped, however, is the other shell - he’s seen it many a time, long and cylindrical as it swirls upward into a taper, its walls carved intricately as it goes.

So, he’s successfully established that the one shell is an oyster shell, yes? That leaves the second shell - which Yifan supposes he could very well research online and perhaps locate its name so as to give himself a clue. Then again, how would he even find which kind of shell it would be? Should he research _long thin shell in the shape of an icicle but with swirls and carved bumps_?

“Bing-jie,” he calls out loudly to his sister next door, hoping that she will manage to hear him over the murmur of Yifan’s desk fan and through the thick of her closed door.

Mere seconds later, then, his sister produces herself from their shared bedroom door adjacent to each other and stands in the doorway, her nightgown swaying around her calves and her hair long as it curtains over her front. “Yes?” She asks softly, her expression lax as she awaits the reason she had been summoned. “What do you need, di?”

“You know a lot about marine biology, right?” He asks, and his sister pushes herself gently off of the door frame as she walks closer to him where he sits at his desk, peering down at his workspace with wary, curious eyes.

“I’m not writing your paper for you, Fan-di,” she says flatly, but Yifan shakes his head, for that had not been the reason in which he had called his sister over. Making a point, he swivels his chair a little to face her and holds up the shell laid in his hand.

“I need your help identifying this,” he says, and his sister reaches forth a hand to take the shell from him. “Do you know what it’s called? I’ve seen it plenty of times before, but I don’t know what it’s officially called. Scientifically, you know?”

“It’s an auger,” she tells him, placing the shell back into his broad, waiting palm. “Why?”

Wordless, Yifan stares down at the shell in his hand and pokes at it curiously with a finger. _It’s an auger_. “No reason,” he mumbles out before shooting her a quick grateful glance. “Thank you, jie.”

“Don’t stay up too late today, di,” she chastises gently, crossing her arms over her bosom. “And don’t go running to the bayside this late to go find your little siren, either. You have class tomorrow and you’ve not been getting enough sleep - I’m worried about your sanity.”

“Jie, I’m fine,” he promises her. “Don’t worry. You can go back to bed now.”

“I’m watching you, Fan-di,” his sister grins as she signals a connection between their gazes with her fingers. As she reaches out and pats him on the upper back, then, she slowly turns on her heel and returns to her room, clicking the door softly shut behind her as she leaves.

Now familiarized once more with the stoic silence of his bedroom and the static movement of his thoughts, Yifan feels as though he has another clue in his hands. He has an oyster, and he has an auger. What does he do with this information, though? He had been gifted two individual shells, which, in Yifan’s memories, lies blurrily along the lines as he had only been given two clues when specifically asked for three. He assumes, out of knowledgeable comfort, that he was not to include the cockle pendant as a clue, for that had been the only shell that had been made into an item for his personal consumer gluttony, which would leave him with the mere two shells. What must he be missing, if lacking a piece to the puzzle?

Wait.

He _has_ three shells. In fact, he has four.

He stands from his desk as his chair makes a brisk groan against the floor, scraping roughly as Yifan’s weight forces it backward, yet he finds himself uncaring and finds his mind fuzzy as he strides over to his bookshelf where he holds his keepsakes on delicate shelves. They’ve got to be here somewhere - Yifan knows he had kept them from the other, for the gesture had simply seemed far too intimate to pass off as a coincidence. As though clued in, Yifan reaches for a small clasp-front box that he keeps on the far left side of the shelf, in which he stores his small pieces of jewelry as well as torn-off buttons. He blows out a heavy sigh of relief, then, for on the very top of the silver and golden layer of metals, lay the two rose-colored shells he had been given. The tellins.

He had been given three clues, which means each of these three shells must lead him to the end of the mystery. Excited, he lines them up on his desk and stares at them where they’ve all conjugated. An oyster, an auger, and a tellin. To normal human social rules, each person would have three initials that they would refer to things with, including a first name, a middle name, and a last name. Yifan supposes that there’s no way the boy’s name could be _Oyster Auger Tellin_ or any combination of the three, for that makes too little sense and sounds far too obvious and silly; besides, the boy _did_ say that this would be a test to prove his loyal interest and his responsible intelligence.

 _Name me in consecutive beats of three_ , he had said. Does that mean his name would be comprised of three syllables? Then again, where would the three shells play a role in any of this should that be the case? Is Yifan simply reading too deeply into this puzzle for his own good?

Or - could each shell represent an individual letter, perhaps? Then again, what would consecutive letters be?

Okay, Yifan, _think_.

The tellin had come first - that would give him a base of the letter T, which he writes down on his notes in fear that he may forget what he was doing or lose his place. The oyster and the auger had come at the exact same time, which means that Yifan would not have a chance to organize their information in terms of respective time. Consecutive beats - that could refer to consecutive time, such as first, second, and third, but Yifan knows that consecutive could also mean an indexed organization, such as an alphabet. Would the remaining two clues be organized alphabetically, then, if they could not be organized by order of arrival?

Yifan crosses out a physical thought in his notes, replacing it with a new one, and his pencil stills as he brings the letters to life. _Tao_. That has to be it - Yifan is sure of it.

Enthusiastic for tomorrow, Yifan finds himself smiling as he bookmarks the page in his notes. He’s found the key, and he finds himself unable to bear the waiting before he can use it to unlock the door.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

As though expecting him, the boy is at the beach today, this time tossing little pebbles into the breadth of the ocean as the tides rush in and hiss to cover up the soft sounds. Yifan has only his notebook with him today, tucked against his side in his dominant hand with his pencil nestled down the spiral spine.

The wind is brisk today, and Yifan watches as it brushes the hem of the boy’s white tunic up and exposes a smooth back over the rim of his dark trousers, dressed as though a street merchant would be centuries ago. Yifan wonders - if the boy does turn out to be a nixie and especially a shapeshifter, at that - if he would also have the ability to travel through time. Since nixies, as far as he knows, go through biological mating cycles, wouldn’t it make sense for them to be considered somewhat everlasting and burn through mates as though cars?

Well, he supposes that’s kind of a bitter way to put it, so he brushes the thought aside as he toes off his shoes to stride barefoot across the soft sand. Not having noticed him, the boy continues to bend down and pick up little rocks from the bed of the damp sand. Yifan finds it strangely and incongruously cute, so childish and youthful for someone around his age, and Yifan has half an inkling to bug him for tips on how to feel less old all of the time.

Heartbeat quickening, Yifan finds his mouth dry as his finger curl tighter around his notebook, for sucking in a breath seems to take monumental effort before he calls out, “Tao!”

It’s as if everything happens both in slow motion and additionally in the blink of an eye, for Yifan could have missed the way time seemed to speed up yet slow down at the same time, for the next time he blinks to clear his vision, the boy is merely several feet from him as compared to several yards, and is facing him with emptied hands.

“You solved it,” the boy smiles. “How did you do it?”

Pursing his lips a little bit, Yifan shrugs, for he is not entirely sure how he managed to solve such a riddle yet had struggled to pick a topic for his final-exam paper. “I just followed the clues,” he decides to go with, and the boy’s lips spread into a gentle, contented grin, his eyes softening as the icy blue dims and lightens in intensity.

“I only gave you two shells, though,” the boy cocks his head down a little bit and tilts it at a slight angle, as though testing his privy. “I had only given you two clues, Yifan, and had asked for three.”

“No,” Yifan shakes his head, smirking. “You gave me three. I remembered that you had given me the tellins - they were your favorite, you said, which means they must have been the first letter of your name since the first letter is often the most important.”

Thankful, the boy dives forward, then, and wraps lithe arms around Yifan’s torso in a gentle hug. Unused to this kind of intimacy, it takes Yifan off-guard and causes him to still, his breaths running short and his heartbeat quickening against the boy’s skin. After only a few seconds, however, the boy pulls away, and Yifan is sure that his cheeks may have flushed. “I made you a promise,” the boy tells him, “and I promised you that as long as you played my game and decrypted the riddle, you would be gifted permission to know anything about me, for I am now indebted to you, Yifan. You may ask me anything. Don’t be afraid - I don’t bite.”

Suddenly on a higher pedestal, Yifan feels prideful as though he’s unlocked a whole world of new information that he hadn’t ever known before. Among the newness and the plethora of questions he probably naturally has, he finds himself speechless. “Anything?” He asks. “Really?”

Soft and kind, the boy trails his fingertips delicately against the tender skin under Yifan’s palms as his eyes brighten with happiness. “Anything, Yifan. I will be as honest with you as I can be, for I expect similar hospitality in return.”

His lips part with a soft sound, then, as Yifan is too inexperienced in handling such a massive amount of information and holding responsibility for all of it, as though it were his child he had to look after and nurture. “Tell me about what you are,” he says, then, his voice gentle. “I mean - I know _what_ you are, but - could you specify, maybe? And also… tell me what it’s like to be that?”

The boy nods as his content visualizes in the dimming of crystal-clear eyes, and so as to not appear so awkward, he suggests that they sit down on the sand, the daytime sun hot and bright in the cloudless sky which, additionally, has the sand feeling extra plush and comfortingly warm beneath their hands and bare feet. In a childish move, the boy crosses his legs under him and dips his fingertips into the sand. “I am a lot of things,” the boy says, his gaze squinting very slightly beneath the light. “What you are seeing now is my preferred form, the one which I hadst adopted from an old friend. What I am, though, is not this form - in that regard, you humans often call me a monster or a witch, and sometimes even a fairy. What I am can take on many forms, both evil and benign, as I am able to have full reign over how I present myself to watchful eyes.”

“You’re a nixie,” Yifan comments carefully, “aren’t you?”

He is rewarded with a kind smile, one that curves the boy’s shapely lips and rounds the salted skin on his cheeks. “I prefer to be called a nymph,” he says, “but yes, biologically speaking, I am a water nix from the southern shores of Jiangmu Island. Before you ask, yes - I was born like this. I did not sell my soul to a rogue witch to become something other than human.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that,” the student snorts, frowning slightly. “I’m guessing you get that question a lot, then, since you predicted it quickly.”

“You would be surprised,” the boy laughs, a giddy little sound that tinkles along the air. “Now, perhaps you understand why I am careful about whom I reveal personal information to.”

“What are your other forms, then? If you don’t mind me asking,” Yifan questions carefully, fiddling with a few smooth, marbled pebbles as he listens to the boy talk.

“Well,” the nymph grins mischievously, “as a creature of one of the planet’s elements, everything about my existing revolves around the water. For example, this?” He lifts a hand and spreads his fingers, showing off the thin, iridescent skin between each digit. “This was an evolutionary adaptation, for my species had to learn how to live beneath the water. Additionally, my upper torso is gilled on the sides for oxygen absorption. When I get wet, my body has two survival modes - mobile and immobile. Should I feel the need to remain immobile, I oftentimes am in the water for pleasure, what you humans call taking a dip. In this instance, I remain seemingly human, as my body assumes that I am not going to delve into the deeper crevices of the sea. When mobile, though, I change into a more aquatic form to allow my body to thrive at deeper latitudes. From this mobile state, is where you humans carved the legends of mermaids, and consecutively, sirens.”

Wordless, Yifan’s fingers slacken as the pebbles slip between the gaps. “So you’re… a mermaid, also?”

“I am a siren,” the boy clarifies gently. “Be mindful that not all nymphs are sirens, and not all sirens are nymphs. Nymphs are shapeshifters, as well as oftentimes deceivers, and have the freedom to take on the form of any of those which they have led to song-bound demise.”

“So you have killed someone,” the student responds carefully, as though he may accidentally have gotten his information wrong. However, the only immediate response that he receives is a disdained sigh, and something tugs on his heart as he sees the guilt fog over the brightness of the boy’s eyes. It’s clear, now, without a verbalized answer that none of this had been a choice - the lifestyle he led with having to act as though in constant disguise as well as be responsible for the deaths of many had not been something he had subscribed to personally, but had merely been forced to pick it up as a biological necessity. “It’s okay, Tao,” he clarifies in a tender voice, “you don’t have to answer that.”

“That is the way that I am programmed to be,” he sends a pressed grin at him, and it pains Yifan to see just how sullen the expression is and how uncharacteristic of him it is, for Yifan is used to seeing him do nothing but smile when he is not acting stoically. “It is in my chemical makeup as a crossbreed, as it is a natural side effect of our mating cycles as nymphs. In a nixie’s lifetime, each one will experience up to five mating cycles, and only one of them will they discover to be their true love. It is in our culture, Yifan, for we believe that our kind only experiences five different loves per lifetime. In that lifetime, each nymph is expected to find their true love, or they will eventually return to where they came from - the sea.”

He frowns, “You return home if you don’t find true love?”

The boy shakes his head, laughing bitterly, “How mundane. If we fail our cultural duties, we die. Then, our cells are redeposited into the ocean, and we are reincarnated all over again to start fresh on the exact same path. Our instincts are what give us hints as to where our potential mates may be, as we do have the ability to travel the globe if need be, but sometimes fate takes that too literally and it becomes difficult to lure our mates in, because they themselves need to believe in the unexpected in order to see the unexpected. You, Yifan, are healthily naive, which allows you to hear and see me.”

“Whoa,” he coos quietly. “I mean - I’m sorry that specific fate has to befall you. That sounds so distressing, especially if you develop feelings for somebody that they don’t end up returning.”

“Yeah, well,” the boy shrugs, “the only thing more painful than having your love not equally returned is trying to force a loved one to reciprocate it for personal gain. Anyway, I should probably change the subject - this topic is a little too tender for your kindred soul. What else would you like to know?”

Oh. Truthfully, Yifan hadn’t minded hearing about the boy’s difficult time with his mating cycles, for as he said, they are only natural and a part of life. Yifan knows that animals go through mating cycles, as well, and therefore it is a normal occurrence. Nevertheless, he doesn’t want to pressure him into talking about things that make him uncomfortable, for Yifan would hate to scare him away or hurt his feelings, far too precious for selfish eyes. “Do you have any cool powers?” He asks with a lopsided grin. “Like, can you water-bend and stuff?”

Caught off-guard, the boy gives a snorted little laugh. “Water-bend? What do you mean?”

“Like, can you manipulate water and stuff, ‘cause you’re a water nymph?”

“I suppose so,” the nymph shrugs. “I can manipulate and control the weather that has to do with water. Fire nymphs control the thunderstorms. So, what I mean by this is oftentimes if we have… _explosions_ , as we call them, which are bouts of extraordinary emotion, the weather will alter and change to match how we feel. You humans develop old wives’ tales about this kind of thing - for instance when it rains or snows, a nymph who is nearby is experiencing some form of sadness, be it heartbreak, loss, or even betrayal. When it is sunny like this - a nymph who is nearby is experiencing joy and happiness.”

Yifan watches as the boy’s cheeks pink just a tad as he speaks, and that comfortable, emblematic smile returns to his face to liven up his expression and soothe Yifan’s worry. “You’re happy right now,” the student comments with gentle words, heart-warmed. “Is that because of me?”

Then, he is gifted the sweetest of smiles and the bluest of eyes as the breeze rustles past them, and the boy’s hair decorations dance along the blonde strands. “It might be,” he teases jovially. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you anymore for today, you see - I have my reasons, and I do fear that you may act rashly if you knew more. Besides, you have human companions to return to, do you not?”

Not ready to end this, Yifan’s palms raise as he shakes away the idea. “No, wait - can’t you stay for just a few more minutes?”

“Of course I intend to stay, for this is where I belong,” the boy coos, “but my instincts tell me that you have important matters to attend to - do you not?”

Caught red-handed, the student falls silent, knowing very well that he should be working on his paper rather than spending so much of his free time fraternizing with the nymph down on the beach. “Okay, yes, I have to finish my paper,” he groans, and the nymph nods his head as he moves to stand, brushing stray particles of sand off of his lap, “but I was going to finish it after talking with you.”

“Do not fret,” the boy laughs a little bit, “and return home to finish your duties as a studious human. The oceans are calling me - I must return home soon, for if I don’t - ”

“Wait,” Yifan calls out then, standing up, as well, as he reaches out a hand and takes hold of the boy’s wrist. “When will I see you again?”

As the breeze begins to pick up, he watches as the boy’s eyes widen just a smidge, as though… surprised, and as though he hadn’t expected for Yifan to ask such a thing. Then, Yifan feels something inside of himself, something warm and comforting and new, as though… a bond. “When would you like to see me again?” The nymph asks calmly.

Yifan knows he shouldn’t do this, for this is meddling with his own sanity at this point, as he is consciously allowing himself to become too involved in this, but he can’t help but want to see him more. “Tonight,” he says quickly, “can you come to my place? I want to introduce you to my siblings - I think they’d love to meet you.”

“Yifan, I really shouldn’t do that,” the nymph shakes his head as he reaches out for Yifan’s fingertips and traces them with his own, innocent and sweet. “It’s not… it’s not exactly a good thing for us to mingle with unmated humans this way. It may put me at risk of being caught and prosecuted.”

Brow raising slightly, Yifan realizes just what he’s dealing with, and how he had been selfish and hadn’t thought of the boy’s end of this fiasco ahead of time. As something that is not wholly human but is not wholly inhuman, either, it would be much akin to a witch hunt should anybody find out just what he is, and just how Yifan associates with him albeit he not being human. “I can keep you in my room,” Yifan tries again, yet the boy sighs and shakes his head to banter with the offer once more until Yifan continues, “I promise, it’ll be just you and me. You can even come in through my window, if you want, yeah? I promise nothing will happen.”

“Yifan, I - ” the boy stutters, cutting himself off, “I can’t.”

“Not even if I promise to keep you safe?” The student tries in a gentle voice, moving in closer as his volume drops to nearly a whisper. “Please, just once. That’s all I ask.”

Nevertheless, the boy remains steadfast and pulls his hands away carefully. “I can’t. Please understand, it’s not you - I just can’t put you in any danger. Please.”

Beginning to understand that trying to argue is proving to be a lost cause, Yifan sighs and nods his head as he lets him go. “Alright,” he says softly. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

It’s awkward trying to leave a conversation that had once crossed the line between intimacy and nonchalance after having been technically turned down for what Yifan would like to suppose would have been a date. He expects the boy to disappear the way he habitually does when ending their conversations, simply vanishing into thin air like an archaic spirit.

Then, he surprises both Yifan and himself as he steps carefully and quickly forward, lays a gentle webbed hand on the thick of Yifan’s shoulder, and leans forward to press a soft kiss to the student’s cheek. Flushing, Yifan’s heartbeat quickens. “I’ll miss you,” the nymph tells him, and Yifan finds himself speechless as the boy steps back and gives him a weak, tightly-pressed little grin.

Lifting a slightly shaky hand, Yifan brushes his fingertips over the spot that the boy had kissed and finds himself utterly smitten.

 

 

 

* * *

 

  

   
 

Tap, tap. tap.

Frowning, Yifan stirs jerkily, drowsy as he sits up from his spot, a dull ache beginning to resonate in his back from his awkward sleeping position. When had he fallen asleep in the middle of working on his outline? As he glances down at his notebook, however, he lets out a brisk little snort and shakes his head, for only he would drool on his notes while sleeping. _Nice going, Yifan, you gross weirdo._

Grimacing, he reaches over for a tissue from the box at the corner of his desk and wipes his mouth with it, as the noise returns. Tap, tap, tap. Unsure of what is making that noise, his brows furrow as he attempts to hone in on exactly what could be making that sound and where. After a moment of thinking, he realizes that it could very well be the window beneath his curtains; perhaps a tree branch is knocking into his window due to the wind. It wouldn’t be that unlikely, considering his parents planted a pear tree next to his bedroom window when he was a baby.

Curious and sleepy, he gets up from his desk chair and strides over to the window to see what all the soft tapping is about, and pushes back the curtain with a steady hand to see if he can see any tree branches in the darkness - when he’s met with a cool, pale face hovering before the glass that makes his heart drop and his insides clench in momentary fear, the shock causing his heartbeat to skip as his nerves fire up in warning. As the realization sets in, however, he sighs and unlocks his window and pulls it upward. “What are you doing?” He asks softly, and the boy’s little lips puff outward in a pout as he lowers the hand he had been using to tap on Yifan’s window. “You scared the fuckin’ shit out of me - I thought you were a ghost or a killer.”

“You said you wanted to see me tonight,” the boy tells him, and Yifan’s chest grows warm inside as he realizes that the boy had actually gone through with his request. Yifan is grateful, for he had forgotten all about his own request until just now. “Also, you said that I could come in through the window. Am I not allowed to see you right now?”

“No, no, please, come in,” Yifan shakes his head as he laughs, smiling warmly as he reaches out broad palms to help the boy through the small space of the window. “You should have told me you could come, that way I could have asked my siblings to leave for the night so you wouldn’t be uncomfortable and worried.”

Nimble as he is, the boy manages to fold himself through the opening, his white tunic flouncing around his hips as he steps barefoot into Yifan’s room and gazes around as though an unfamiliar little minx. “This is your room?” The nymph asks him softly, and Yifan yawns as he stretches his shoulders out, rolling them back as he nods.

“Yeah,” he exhales. “Sorry it’s a little messy - I didn’t know you were coming, so I… didn’t get time to do my laundry after class, and before studying, and…”

“Yifan,” the boy stops him, his word kind. “It’s okay. I do not know what a messy human room looks like, nor a clean human room.”

Oh. Right. He doesn’t live in a house, he lives in the water. “Does that mean you like it, then?” Yifan asks bashfully, smiling tenderly. “‘Cause you should know, if you like it, then you’re allowed to visit it as often as you want.”

“I like it,” the nymph smiles. “It reminds me of you.”

“Yeah?” Yifan grins, sitting down on his bed and motioning for the boy to sit with him. Compliant, he does, keeping them separated with several inches of space as the boy fiddles with his thumbs in his lap. “What kind of things remind you of me?”

“You always wear sweaters,” the boy tells him as he gazes up at Yifan’s ceiling lights, as though entranced by them, “and blue jeans, too, and you’ve got a lot of both in your laundry basket. It also smells like you.”

“And what do I smell like?”

“Sometimes you smell like pine trees,” the boy grins, “and other times you smell kind of like the sun, just nice and warm.”

Unused to having his personal scent admired to such a high extent, Yifan blushes and feels his pulse skip, for he always found it quite far and few between to find people who notice things such as a person’s natural scent. “You really seem to like it, don’t you?” Yifan asks. “And you really seem to like the sun, too.”

“That’s because the sun is the center of our universe,” the nymph speaks quietly, before his finger fiddling stops and he glances up at Yifan from beneath his lashes. “And therefore, I do like to consider you like the sun - natural, bright, and warm - and if you would allow me, then I would like to consider you the center of my universe, as well.”

Nope, that’s the end of him, for Yifan is not strong enough to resist such affectionate words. “Tao, you can’t say that,” he croons as he leans forward to take one of the boy’s little hands in his. “I’m not strong enough to say no.”

“I was only telling you the truth,” the nymph gives him a little giggle, flirtatious in nature as he curls into Yifan to lay his head on the thick of the student’s shoulder. “I had told you that my kind is meant to try our best to build relationships due to our mating cycles.”

Content, Yifan hums, lifting heavy arms to wrap them around the nymph to draw him just a little bit closer and give him permission to access Yifan’s personal space. With this advantage, the boy is able to scoot into the space between Yifan’s legs and curl into him like a young child, comfortable and protected as Yifan smooths down the boy’s pale hair with a soft palm. “Does that mean,” Yifan mumbles against the boy’s hair as he leans back into stacked pillows, elevated comfortably as the nymph snuggles against him, “that I’m supposed to be your next mate?”

“It means that much if you want it to,” he is told, “for I cannot force you to do something you don’t want to do, especially when in regards to my feelings. Why do you think you have been the only one to hear me and see me as of thus far?”

Yifan hums. “Those who were not meant to see, will never see - that’s what you said, right?”

“Mhm,” the nymph nods his head, his hair brushing Yifan’s jawline as the little beads lie cold against his throat. “I was sent to this town for a reason - my instincts led me here with the hopes of discovering what it is that I was meant to accomplish in this end. I do believe that I was meant to find you, Yifan, and I can only hope that you feel a similar way.”

“Well,” the student mumbles, “I don’t know what nixies use to refer to those that you link up with, but us humans call them boyfriends and girlfriends.”

“Does that mean that I would be your boyfriend, then?” He is asked as the boy raises his head from his shoulder, his bright eyes soft and compassionate beneath the dim lighting of his bedroom in the late hours of the night. “We don’t have very many terms of endearment among my kind.”

“That depends,” Yifan smiles, trailing his hand down from the boy’s nape down to his back in a slow, smooth swipe. “Would you like to be my boyfriend?”

Sweet as icing, the boy gently rubs a thumb over Yifan’s exposed clavicle over the hem of his shirt’s neck, before he reaches up, arching his neck, and plants a little kiss at the base of the student’s jaw. “I think it sounds pretty,” he coos, and Yifan’s cheeks rosy up as the nymph lets out a tinkling little giggle, as innocent as the twilight. “Are you okay with that, Yifan?”

“If you want me to be okay with it,” the student pledges gently, “then I promise you that I am okay with it.”

Happy, the nymph lets out an airy little squeal into his neck which proves ticklish, and Yifan chuckles at the childish reaction. “To be honest with you, human,” the nymph says, “I was afraid to tell you about my mating cycle out of fear that you wouldn’t believe me and wouldn’t be able to return my feelings… I didn’t want to know that I for sure was going to die.”

“To be honest with you, my sister told me about it first,” Yifan sighs a little bit as he leans further back into his pillows into more of a lying position than a sitting one. “I didn’t believe in all of this shit until I saw you out there on the rock that day, and until you saved me after I fell. I woke up and was absolutely certain an angel must have spawned there, or some shit, ‘cause I should have died. Then I went home and started believing in it, but my family doesn’t believe me. Fuck ‘em, it doesn’t matter.”

“Well,” the boy says, “I… kind of… knew from the very moment that I looked at you that you were fated to be my mate… I just didn’t know how to tell you or what to say, so that is why I was… at a loss for words, as you humans call it?”

Humming gently, Yifan can understand; it must be intimidating to know at first someone that someone must be for you but not know how to tell them out of fear that they would think you were crazy and run away. “Can I ask a question?” He requests quietly. “Actually, two questions. What exactly is your kind’s mating cycle? Like how does it work? Is it like mammalian mating cycles where they find a partner and procreate and then the cycle ends?”

Thinking for a moment, the boy then shakes his head. “No, not quite. We are an advanced species much like yours, where procreation is used for personal pleasure over reproduction. Every gender of our species can reproduce and carry child, but we are given the choice of bearing offspring much like you humans. To us, it is not a necessity to keep our kind alive, for we simply form out of the miscellaneous cells that thrive in the sea foam. I do not have parents, unlike each of you humans who was birthed from a ripe ovum and a cooperating sperm cell. Our mating cycles have only one purpose, and that is to locate a permanent partner. The only reason we call them cycles is because when a mate turns us down, as not every mate develops feelings, the road ends and the cycle restarts with a new mate as each of the five chances burns out.”

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing to come out of his mouth, for it sounds far too tragic to live in a community where you are expected to fall in love or else you would soon die. “You’re right, that does sound a lot like the society that I live in. How does your life decide that you had someone partner up in that fated cell of love, though? Like, how do you determine that you are safe and able to live a long, happy life, and how do you know they’re not lying?”

“Biologically,” the nymph speaks quietly, as though perhaps growing sleepy, and Yifan notices how his holds on him have fallen lax and his weight has become soft and pliable, for he may soon fall asleep, “when two nymphic hearts fall in love, the cells of the cardiovascular tissue thicken and actually turn the chest a rosy color due to the increase in blood circulation directly around the heart. When a nixie finally finds their lifelong mate, you will be able to tell because when in their human form, their skin will have turned a different color. I guess it’s like what you humans call sunburn.”

“When will your skin change color, then?”

Smiling tenderly, the boy responds with, “When you officially fall in love with me.”

Yifan does not see himself having much trouble with that, for simply having the nymph’s heartbeat pressed up against his own feels so right to him that he actually finds himself excited to delve deeper into this new relationship of theirs and see where it may take them. Though he is not sure which way his feelings may sway in the future, he isn’t exactly comfortable with the idea that he may be responsible for the boy’s demise if something were to go wrong with his feelings. Nevertheless, in the immediate moment, Yifan finds himself content and as happy as can currently be as the boy breathes against him, his limbs curled up and over Yifan’s own, a trousered leg having locked over his.

He wonders how many people the nymph has come across already to try to swindle his way into their hearts, and whether or not Yifan is perhaps the first or the last. He wonders how painful it must be within the boy’s pain tolerance to lose the chance with someone you love, for Yifan does not have personal experience with that kind of thing. His first relationship had been when he was thirteen and had barely lasted past two months, yet as it had been his first relationship, Yifan had not gathered attached emotions about it.

“Hey, Tao?” He asks softly in order to check whether or not the boy is still awake. When he is rewarded with a mumbled little hum, lilted in intonation as though a question, Yifan feels comfort in knowing that the boy is still with him on this familiar level of consciousness. “Can I ask you my second question?” He knows, without fail, that the answer will automatically be a yes despite the boy verbalizing his consent about it, and he trails gentle fingertips along the salted locks of the boy’s hair where they’re tucked into the sparse black beads. “What are these things in your hair?”

Having shifted topics completely, the boy lifts his head from Yifan’s shoulder and glances at him with a slightly pressed expression, confused. Then, he lifts a hand and carefully pulls one of the decorations from his hair, and Yifan watches as his hair appears to be tugged on as the object slides free. “They’re nautili,” the boy grins at him, placing the black object down onto his palm and holding it up for Yifan to see. As the student watches, then, many peachy little appendages begin to peek out from beneath the black rounding and his eyes widen as it begins to move, crawling very slowly across the boy’s open hand. “They’re miniature chambered mollusks. Normally, their shells aren’t pure black, but sometimes they migrate into different colored shells.”

However, Yifan’s expression is flat and shocked. “You have crabs in your hair? How does that even work?”

“It’s not that weird, silly,” the boy laughs. “They latch on and attach like crabs would but they’re cephalopods, so they’re much tinier and do not have pincers that crabs have. I like to put them on my hair because their shells look pretty and I like to use them as decorations.”

“Wouldn’t they die outside of water, though?” He asks in confusion. “How do they survive that long on your hair?”

“Yifan,” the boy deadpans. “I’m a water nymph. They absorb the aquatic energy from my spiritual aura to keep themselves hydrated.”

Oh. Right. Yifan exhales with an embarrassed countenance as he realized he’d been stupid and hadn’t had any common sense, there. “Listen, I’ve only known about nymphs for like a week. Don’t beat me up for it.”

Giggling, the boy places the little creature back into his hair and Yifan watches as it attaches once more and hangs comfortably from the pale locks, as the sound of his little laughter resonates prettily in Yifan’s direct vicinity. Comfortably assuming that the boy plans to fall asleep here and therefore spend the night, the student reaches over to shut off his bedside lamp, bathing the room in comfortable darkness as the moonlight gently floods in and illuminates the room with a very soft, bluish hue.

“Are you sure you can stay here through tonight?” He asks quietly, voice barely above a whisper as he smooths over the boy’s hair with an idiosyncratic hand.

“Yifan,” he hears. “Just because I’m not fully human doesn’t mean I don’t sleep.”

“Okay, okay,” he whispers. “Sorry.”

Throughout the night, he fully expects the nymph to leave him and disappear into thin air like he does each time Yifan has come to visit him down at the beach. However, when he wakes up hours later to use the restroom, the boy is still snuggled up to his side exactly as he had been, his eyes closed as he sleeps and breaths in soft snores, his hair mussed against Yifan’s pillow in the early morning dimness. It’s quite a precious sight and Yifan finds himself smiling, unwilling to have it end.

In a moment of joy and admiration, Yifan reaches beneath his pillow for his cell phone and, smiling to himself softly, decides to take a picture of him under the morning light.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

   
  
“Tao, wake up,” he whispers, very gently shaking the boy’s shoulder to rouse him from his rest. “Hey. It’s time to get up.”

Groaning softly, the boy rolls onto his back and cracks his eyes open, squinting through the bright sunlight that has flooded Yifan’s room. “What time is it?” The boy groans groggily.

“It’s time for you to leave,” Yifan chuckles. “I have class soon.”

Stretching and yawning softly, the nymph sits up in bed as Yifan throws his backpack over his shoulder, fully dressed with a woolen knit hat having pulled his hair back, not having been able to find time to shower. “Shoot, I really did stay here for a long time, didn’t I?”

“You can always come back,” he promises his new partner as he helps him stand from the bed, the boy’s limbs still a little bit lax and heavy with sleep, “or I could come find you down by the water later, yeah? I’ll be back this evening - don’t worry, it won’t be forever.”

“I’m sorry for taking up your bed,” the boy apologizes. “I hadn’t meant to stay that long, really - I was just going to stay for a few hours because you asked me to, and then I was going to leave and give you your nighttime privacy but I - ”

To quiet him down, Yifan strides forward with confident steps and pulls him close and presses his lips against his, earning a startled little moan against his skin as the boy’s hands stutter on his shoulders for grip support. Parting with a soft sound, the boy’s cheeks have flushed a rosy tone and his irises have brightened as he remains within Yifan’s personal space, chest to chest as the boy’s fingers slide down his shoulders in nervous motions.

“What - what was that for?” He is asked, and Yifan grins slightly at the innocence of his reaction.

“Am I not allowed to kiss my boyfriend before I leave?” He questions with curved lips, the boy’s own being slightly chapped from sleeping. “You should know, dating a human, that we humans love to kiss. It’s one of our favorite things to do.”

With that, his hand slides away from the boy’s back as he takes a half-step away, granting him with personal space should he need it. “Oh,” the boy mutters out, his little fingers coming up near his mouth as though recalling how the older man’s lips had felt on his.

“Have a good day, you,” Yifan grins as he pulls his curtains back to give the boy access once more to the window to leave, yet he stands in the middle of Yifan’s room, his tunic draped around his hips and a flush on his cheeks. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

Readjusting his bag, Yifan ruffles his hair sweetly before striding past him toward his door. It’s only a brief moment that his hand catches the door’s handle to turn it and let himself into the den, when something tugs on the back of his shirt in a tight grip, and when he turns around to see what it may be that the boy wants, there’s a mouth being planted roughly on his as his back hits the door with a loud thud, the boy’s hands fisted in the fabric of his sweater.

It’s much more insistent a kiss than the first, as though the boy were simply starved and would have died without affectionate touch, yet it’s sloppy, too hard of a press before the boy pulls away and their lips part with a moist sound, Yifan’s having flourished pink from the pressure. “Sorry,” the boy breathes out after a moment, as though he hadn’t been able to help it. “I’ll, um… I’ll miss you.”

At that, Yifan watches as the boy backs away before lifting his lithe legs onto the structure of Yifan’s nightstand, ducking his head down as he slinks out of the window, delicate and well-rehearsed and as quiet as a mouse. As he manages to land on his feet, he gives him a joyous little wave with rounded cheeks and bright eyes before he darts out of sight.

Open-mouthed and astonished, Yifan’s face alights in fascination. “You sweet little minx.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

   
  
“Jie! Bing-jie!”

Sighing, Bingbing turns on her heel as that familiar voice approaches, and it seems like a new running gag to see how many times Yifan can run up to her with news while trying to make it to another one of her classes. Unsurprisingly, Yifan is running over to her with his assignment folder in his hand and an expectant grin on his face. “Oh no,” she groans with a little laugh, her shoulders bouncing. “What did you do now?”

“Jie, I got an A on my paper!” He cheers for himself, flipping open his folder to take out his newly-graded final-exam paper, the one his sister had given him several books on and a little bit of her extra time helping him with. “You helped me get an A!”

“Look at you, Fan-di,” she coos in awe, taking his paper from him to glance through it with joyous eyes. “You did this all by yourself?”

Proud of himself, Yifan nods, his expression brighter than the sun as he can finally brag that he did something like this all by himself. “Yup - in fact, my professor complimented me on the sheer amount of information I included. She said she could tell that I put a lot of effort into it since most people did the bare minimum and milked out what little information they found regarding their topics.”

“Great job, di,” she congratulates him and hands his paper back to him. “I guess now you can stop hallucinating that little water sprite down by the beach, huh?”

Far too high on his own cloud of pride in himself, Yifan shakes his head, a shifty little smile spread across his lips. “He’s not a hallucination, jie. Wanna see?”

Remembering his Big Bright Idea that he had come across at six in the morning, he reaches into his left back jeans pocket for his cell phone, procuring it and unlocking it easily. With insistent fingers, he taps into his picture gallery to bring up the photograph that he had taken that morning, before making it full-screen and presenting his phone to his sister.

Eyebrows furrowing, her face inches a little bit closer as though to get a better look, before her lips curl downward and she shakes her head. “There’s nothing there, di.”

Confused, Yifan looks back at his cell phone. Very clearly is the picture of the boy, laid in Yifan’s bed that morning with his white tunic ruched up to expose his flat stomach and his hair spilling over Yifan’s pillow. “What are you talking about?” He snorts. “He’s right there. Look. He’s the one who’s been helping me with all of the information for my paper.”

“Di, the photo is completely black - are you going blind?” She asks with concern, moving closer to him to check his vision with her palm pressed to the side of his face, making sure he does not have cataracts this early in life.

Then, it clicks. _Those who are not meant to see will never see._

“I was kidding,” he tries to save himself with a snarky little tisk, realizing, of course, his sister wouldn’t be able to see, for she is a non-believer, and she is not immediately involved in the boy’s current fated timeline. With his timeline, they are never intended to directly cross paths, and therefore, his sister cannot see him. “How’s about tomorrow, since it’s the weekend. I take all of you out for lunch as congratulations for me doing so well on my final? My treat, of course.”

“Are you alright?” She laughs comically, her expression still twisted in slight confusion and concern. “You’re acting so strangely today.”

“I’m fine,” he promises her, for he is fine - he’s just a little bit stupid. “I’ll see you at home, okay, jie?”

“Yeah,” she nods, still skeptical as her brother walks away. “Such a weird child, you are, Fan-di.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

   
  
Slowly, he pulls back from his hiding spot behind the brick pedestals of the campus gate.

Had Yifan really been using him all this time just for his stupid paper? Had all of this, all this time, just been for siphoning information about his species just for his own personal consumption and use to leak to the humans? No, Yifan wouldn’t have done that, for Yifan likes him - right? Doesn’t he?

Bitterly, he turns glossy eyes to the sky as the clouds begin to darken and thicken with water, preparing to rain. How could he have been so stupid after he had been taught his whole life not to reveal this much information to unmated humans? He had trusted him with _everything_ , had let him in further than he’d let anybody else in and had even spent extended time with him as though a human lover would have. Why would Yifan betray him this way and tell the whole world about what it is that his kind had worked so hard to keep secret?

Biting down on a trembling lip, tears flit down his cheeks as he strides away from the gate and into the forest as the first drop of rain falls wetly onto the sidewalk behind him, forgotten just like his respect and his trust.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

   
  
“Tao!” He calls out in excitement, his folder in hand as he holds his opened umbrella above his head, fully intending to show his hard work off to his partner despite the rough weather. Rain or shine, he knows very well that the boy would be extremely proud of him and his accomplishment successfully wrapping up the semester.

However, the boy doesn’t seem to be anywhere to be found, neither on the rain-soaked sand nor the rocks, and Yifan had never been given information as to where he likes to hang out when the weather is poor. As he takes his first step onto the sand, as though breaking through a barrier, he begins to hear something. It’s a siren call, but it’s unlike anything he’s heard the boy make thus far - it sounds like wailing, like agonized, depressed sobbing as though someone may be hurt, and panic bleeds through his whole body as he fears the worst.

“Tao?” He calls out in alarm, loud over the deafening whisper of the pouring rain. Something is wrong, for this is the first day it has rained in weeks, the first time it had poured since meeting him, and Yifan isn’t that simple to turn a blind eye to the obvious. He must be hurt, someone must have found him and attacked him or come after him for he never cries - Yifan would know.

As he approaches the water, however, it becomes clear to him what the culprit is. Off to the side, just around the rocks as though on a sandbar, the boy is sat in the middle of the water as the rough tide washes around his bare shoulders, the melancholic sound intensifying.

Alarmed and thinking something may have happened to him, Yifan drops his belongings sans his umbrella and runs down the edge of the beach, the boy’s cries ear-piercing to a point where Yifan has to grit his teeth to try to bear the intensity of the sound.

As his ankles make contact with the frothy tide, he shivers as the icy water rushes over his skin and he wonders briefly how the boy can even manage to sit in the water, yet Yifan knows that their blood temperatures more than likely differ. “Hey, Tao,” he calls out over the sound as he grows much closer, and notices from this short of a distance that not only are the boy’s lips parted widely as he calls out into the skies, but that his irises are _stark white_. Alarmed, he lurches forward and lays a hand on the boy’s naked, frigid shoulder, and as though having been in a trance, the cries immediately stop.

“Hey,” he huffs out, unable to even hear the volume of his own voice to know if he were speaking softly or loudly. “Hey, what’s wrong? Why are you out here?”

Quieted down, the boy’s expression is blank as he stares forward to the horizon with colorless eyes, his pupils startlingly light and grey as though he were blind. Panicking, Yifan tries to curl his only free hand under the boy’s armpit to lift him up, but for how lithe and easy to lift he knows the boy to usually be, he finds it very difficult to lift him.

Then - something changes, and the rain slowly stops. As Yifan gazes up at the sky, pulling his umbrella away from over the top of him, he can physically feel the boy staring at him, and glancing back down at him to meet the collateral gaze proves to be intimidating.

“Why are you here?” He is asked, the boy’s tone flat, and Yifan’s eyebrows knit with concern over how uncharacteristic it is for the nymph to treat him so coldly.

“What are you talking about?” He expresses. “I told you I would be coming to see you after class - why are you out here in the water? Why are you crying?”

Then, the boy sighs, his shoulders drooping, as his lifeless eyes turn away from him. “Why do you care?” He asks quietly.

“Because I like you,” Yifan huffs out a sigh as his posture straightens, for he has absolutely no idea what is the matter with the boy and being in this kind of a place, calf-deep in the water, is not exactly the most resourceful place to be when patching up intimate holes. “Look - ” he says as he quickly hoists his umbrella onto one of the rocks so as to make use of both of his hands. “Did I do something? ‘Cause if I did, I really need you to tell me, okay? Trust me, I’m an idiot and I do shit all time - I’ll even punch myself in the face for you. Please talk to me, Tao?”

Shaking his head slowly, gently, the strands of his hair dark from being wet, the boy continues to not look at him. “I trusted you,” he mumbles. “I shouldn’t have trusted you.”

“Tao, what are you talking about?” He repeats himself. Concerned, he decides to sink to his knees, shivering and hissing as his legs and rear sink into the frigid water. “I’m serious, did I do something? I really want you to talk to me, Tao - if I did something, I swear, I didn’t mean it and I’ll do the best I can to fix it.”

“If you care enough to want to fix it,” the boy confronts him as he meets his gaze, the blue of his irises completely gone as the white begins to gray around the edges, as though Yifan’s vision was in black-and-white, “then why would you use me just for your paper?”

Lips parting, Yifan could swear that his brain cells just scratched the record of his constant internal-thought soundtrack. “What?” He asks softly. “Tao, I never used you for - what are you talking about? I used my books for my paper - you know, those books that I constantly brought with me?”

“Then why would you ask me all of these questions?” The nymph cries out, tears streaking wetly down his cheeks. “Why would you ask all of these things about me and my people as though we are books to be read? Why would you take all of this information about my life if all you were doing to do with it was use it in a stupid paper?”

“I didn’t use that information, though,” Yifan shakes his head. “I promise that I only used the information that I got from the books. Everything I asked about you had been my own curiosity because I just wanted to get to know you. Why are you bringing this up?”

“Because I saw you today, Yifan,” the boy huffs out, giving up. “I missed you so much that I came to see you at school today and overheard you telling your sister that I helped you with your paper when I did no such thing. How could you betray me like this, Yifan? I told you how scared I was about what would happen if you did… I’m so scared…”

“Hey,” he coos, leaning a little bit closer, “I didn’t use anything in my paper that you had considered personal. You know how you barely told me anything about yourself until after I solved your little riddle? Everything that I included in my paper had been things that I had gotten from the book because I knew that my professor would never have proof to go off of to tell me that I was wrong. When I said that you helped me with my paper, I was referring to the fact that you gave me a reason to finish my paper and to shift my topic about nixies, because I wanted to know more about you and I wanted to make you proud of me.”

Teary-eyed, the boy looks back at him, his irises beginning to flourish periwinkle. “Really?” He asks softly. “You… you really mean that?”

“Of course I do,” he sighs. “I would never have done that to you, I promise you. If I had to work to know more personal things about you, then I was going to have to treat them as though they were fragile. As though - ” he gets a brief idea, then, and slides a hand down the neck of his sweater to reach beneath it, before he lifts it up and pulls the object over his head, “as though they were like this, easily breakable but safe in the right hands.”

He hands the object to him, the chain falling into the nymph’s palms. “You kept it,” the boy whispers out, surprised that Yifan would have kept the cockle locket. “You - why did you keep this?”

“Because you said it was a gift for me so that I wouldn’t forget you. Therefore, it’s important to me, because it’s from you.”

Soft and tender-hearted, the boy’s tears return as he sniffles wetly, his tears mixing with the seawater that spatters onto his collarbones and lower face as the tide rushes in. “Yifan,” he bleats out pathetically, yearning for comfort, and Yifan is quick to give it to him as he wraps his arms around him and pulls him in, holding him close against his chest. “I’m so sorry, I…”

“Shh,” Yifan whispers. “Don’t apologize. It’s okay. I’m right here.”

As he cries it out, the tide begins to calm, the rushes of the waves beginning to gradually weaken as the nymph’s sadness slowly washes away with the curl of the sea foam. Eventually, he allows himself to pull away to gaze up at his partner with his typical blue eyes, having returned to his normal state once more, yet Yifan gets no time to check on him before the boy’s salty lips are on his, pulling him down by his shirt. Happy to comply, Yifan kisses him back, a shy little tongue poking at the salt-puckered skin on the student’s lips, yet as the mood does not cooperate with the boy’s curiosity about the newness of human kissing, Yifan has to pull away.

“Why did you come out here?” He asks gently. “I mean - here, of all places.”

“I wanted to be in the water that way nobody could tell I was crying,” the boy pouts, and Yifan coos happily as the preciousness sticks to his skin. “Shut up - I thought you were lying to me.”

“You’re lucky you’re cold-blooded,” Yifan laughs, “or you would be getting hypothermia out here. Come on, let’s get you out of the water and if you want, you can come back to my house tonight. You’ll always have a warm bed to sleep in when you want one.”

Happy, the boy’s irises resonate in their classic medium-blue tone, and the breeze begins to pick up as the warmth of the sunlight returns to their exposed skin. “I would like that,” he smiles. “But, uh - you have to help me out of the water and let me dry in the sun, first.”

Confused, Yifan’s brow furrows. “What? Wait, why?”

Giggly and happy that he, despite his insecurities and the wavelengths of his emotional crests, has managed to find that someone he had been told about his whole life, the boy grins at him. “Did you forget what I had told you happens to me when I get wet?”

Behind him, Yifan hears a loud splash as water spatters onto the back of his shirt where it’s still dry. When he glances over, then, there’s a large, cartilaginous dual fin peeking from the water and bobbing with the motions of the waves, and realization dawns on him as his eyes widen.

“I thought you would have known,” the boy continues his monologue, sighing contentedly, “that dating a water nymph would have been more complex than what you humans are used to. Don’t worry - nobody will see me.”

That’s right, Yifan realizes, and he remembers just how the boy had been presented the very first day he had met him - butt-naked and salted over as though fresh out of the water, and Yifan wonders if a scenario just like this one may have occurred that fateful day. That one-sided conversation they had where the nymph had barely responded hadn’t been coincidental - it had been allegorical, as though planned, and Yifan’s jaw drops as he wonders if perhaps every single thing that has occurred could somehow have been planned. Even if the events of the past two weeks had been planned, the shit-eating expression on the boy’s face certainly doesn’t help.

“You sweet little minx, you.”

 

 


End file.
